HONG KONG: In this column, staff writer J.E. Reich rounds up the most important and fascinating space news of the past week in bite-sized summaries to keep you up-to-date on what’s happening way up above us.
After last week’s supermoon and the discovery of (very salty) unfrozen water on Mars, you’d think that the universe (or the hardworking folks at NASA) would take a little break — but if you did, you apparently thought wrong. Pluto decided to show up Mars’ big watery moment last week by showcasing its own bona fide ice water via the New Horizons space probe, and NASA spacecraft Dawn made history by completing an orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres for the first time. Oh, and did we mention that NASA has announced its plan for sending astronauts to Mars?
Pluto Shows Off Its Blue Skies, New Horizons Discovers Ice Water On The Dwarf Planet’s Surface.
New Horizons sent back yet another treasure trove of goodies in the form of some breathtaking images that have given us even more insight into Pluto. The spacecraft captured an image of Pluto’s “blue skies” — that is, the atmospheric “blue haze” created by “soot-like particles we call tholins,” according to NASA. Most importantly, image-based data collected and analyzed by New Horizons’ Ralph spectral composition manager identified ice water on Pluto — making it the first sighting of H2O on the dwarf planet’s surface in history.
Tesla driverless system to use updated radar technology
WASHINGTON: Electric carmaker Tesla announced Sunday it was upgrading its Autopilot software to use more advanced radar technology. In a...
