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April 09, 2015

Moon formed when young Earth and little sister collided
College Park, Md. (UPI) Apr 8, 2015
It's long been believed that Earth's moon was formed by a significant planetary collision with a Mars-like protoplanet called Theia. Now, a new study suggests the primordial protoplanet that crashed into a young Earth was quite similar in size and composition. "The Earth and the moon are not twins born from the same planet, but they are sisters in the sense that they grew up in the same environment," said Hagai Perets, study co-author and astrophysicist at the Israel Institute of Technology in ... read more

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Team Returning Orbiter to Duty After Computer Swap NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, made an unplanned switch on Wednesday from one main computer to a redundant one onboard, triggering a hiatus in planned activities. Sens ... more		Life Needs An Atmosphere, But How Much Is Too Much How much atmosphere is too much for life? As scientists discover more super-Earths and mini-Neptunes, the question becomes more relevant. Often, the rocky cores of these planets are believed to be a ... more		Planned Maneuver Further Extends MESSENGER Orbital Operations MESSENGER mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., conducted a maneuver yesterday to raise the spacecraft's minimum altitude sufficiently ... more
				First ASU-built space instrument ready for final lab tests The first space instrument to be built at Arizona State University has just received the electronics it will use in flight. This starts the final laboratory tests leading to its launch next year on ... more		Researchers build brain-machine interface to control prosthetic hand A research team from the University of Houston has created an algorithm that allowed a man to grasp a bottle and other objects with a prosthetic hand, powered only by his thoughts. The technique, de ... more

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Long Beach CA - May 19-21, 2015

Human 2 Mars Conference Mat 5-7 2015 - Washington DC

Dawn orbiting high over the night side of Ceres Now orbiting high over the night side of a dwarf planet far from Earth, Dawn arrived at its new permanent residence on March 6. Ceres welcomed the newcomer from Earth with a gentle but firm gravitat ... more		More evidence for groundwater on Mars Monica Pondrelli and colleagues investigated the Equatorial Layered Deposits (ELDs) of Arabia Terra in Firsoff crater area, Mars, to understand their formation and potential habitability. On t ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life A meteorite may have been responsible for a water plume briefly spotted above Europa two years ago, implying it takes a very rare event to breach the ice on the Jovian moon. Astrobiologists wo ... more
				NASA Releases Tool Enabling Citizen Scientists to Examine Asteroid Vesta NASA has announced the release of Vesta Trek, a free, web-based application that provides detailed visualizations of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in our solar system. NASA's Dawn spacec ... more		Modular brains help organisms learn new skills without forgetting old skills New research suggests that when brains are organized into modules they are better at learning new information without forgetting old knowledge. The findings - published this week in PLOS Computation ... more

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

Ultra-realistic robot proves there's more than one way to scare a fish In the world of the tiny zebrafish, the predatory red tiger oscar is the stuff of nightmares. And while the species has no natural reason to fear robots, researchers at the NYU Polytechnic School of ... more		Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday The Soyuz-2.1A carrier rocket has been successfully installed at the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is scheduled for launch on October 29, the press service of the Russian ... more		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		Scars on Mars from 2012 Rover Landing Fade - Usually A series of observations from Mars orbit show how dark blast zones that were created during the August 2012 landing of NASA's Curiosity rover have faded inconsistently. The High Resolution Ima ... more
Bill Nye and others discussing taking humans to Mars by 2033 Bill Nye and a group of space experts are discussing plans to get a group of humans to orbit Mars by the year 2033. ... more		Will the moon's first inhabitants live in giant lava tubes? The moon's first long-term inhabitants will require especially protective shelter. Cosmic radiation, extreme temperatures and the occasional meteorite impacts make the lunar surface a rather hostile place. ... more		New explanation for Mercury's dark surface Peering into space, the surface of Mercury appears dark and unreflective, an observation that has long puzzled planetary scientists due to the planet's very low surface abundance of iron (less than ... more		Soft Landing on the Moon an Extraordinary Challenge Chinese Chang'e 3 spacecraft on Dec. 14, 2013 became the first probe to soft land on the Moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. Other missions could follow its footsteps soon as the commerci ... more

	OSIRIS-REx Mission Passes Critical Milestone NASA's groundbreaking science mission to retrieve a sample from an ancient space rock has moved closer to fruition. The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Expl ... more		Soft, energy-efficient robotic wings Dielectric elastomers are novel materials for making actuators or motors with soft and lightweight properties that can undergo large active deformations with high-energy conversion efficiencies. Thi ... more

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

Computer sharing of personality in sight: inventor		Curiosity Sniffs Out History of Martian Atmosphere		Warm or cold? Mars' history takes a watery new twist		Curiosity Eyes Prominent Mineral Veins on Mars		Media Spun Up on NASA Cutting-edge Mars Landing Technology
Saturn Spacecraft Returns to the Realm of Icy Moons		Artificial hand able to respond sensitively using smart metal wires		Flash Reformatted and Marathon Completed		Comet dust: Planet Mercury's 'invisible paint'		Stop blaming the moon

Goddard releases open source core flight software suite to public

Earthlike 'Star Wars' Tatooines may be common

Rover Amnesia Event Follows Latest Memory Reformatting

MESSENGER Completes 4,000th Orbit of Mercury

New Horizons Sampling 'Space Weather' on Approach to Pluto

Chinese scientists mull power station in space

Tiny bio-robot is a germ suited-up with graphene quantum dots

Cluster satellite catches up

Scuttling satellites to save space

A new spin on Saturn's peculiar rotation

Help Name New Features on Pluto

NASA plans to bring boulder into moon orbit

Curiosity Rover Finds Biologically Useful Nitrogen on Mars

Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative

NASA Reformats Memory of Longest-Running Mars Rover

NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Passes Marathon Distance

Ancient Martian lake system records 2 water-related events

Snake robots learn to turn by following the lead of real sidewinders

Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life

Surviving in hostile territory

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