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December 13, 2015

Curiosity reaches sand dunes
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 12, 2015
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has begun an up-close investigation of dark sand dunes up to two stories tall. The dunes are on the rover's trek up the lower portion of a layered Martian mountain. The dunes close to Curiosity's current location are part of "Bagnold Dunes," a band along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. Observations of this dune field from orbit show that edges of individual dunes move as much as 3 feet (1 meter) per Earth year. The rover's pla ... read more

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Opportunity on west rim of Endeavour Crater within Marathon Valley The rover is positioned on steep, north-facing slopes for improved solar array energy production. On Sol 4202 (Nov. 19. 2105), the robotic arm was raised so Panoramic Camera (Pancam) color images co ... more		NASA's Curiosity rover reaches Martian sand dunes NASA's Curiosity rover is continuing its trek up Mount Sharp. Recently, the Mars rover reached a series of sand dunes covering a lower portion of the layered Martian mountain inside Gale Crater. ... more		Zooming in on Pluto's Pattern of Pits On July 14 the telescopic camera on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft took the highest resolution images ever obtained of the intricate pattern of "pits" across a section of Pluto's prominent heart-sha ... more
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Pluto's close-up, now in color This enhanced color mosaic combines some of the sharpest views of Pluto that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft obtained during its July 14 flyby. The pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Hori ... more		New clues to Ceres' bright spots and origins Ceres reveals some of its well-kept secrets in two new studies in the journal Nature, thanks to data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. They include highly anticipated insights about mysterious bright fea ... more		U.S. defense in free fall U.S. and Saudis conduct Middle East's largest counter-drone exercise Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact		China launches new communication satellite China on Thursday morning put a new communication satellite into orbit from the southwestern Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The "ChinaSat 1C" satellite was launched at 0:46 a.m. and carried ... more
				XPRIZE verifies moon express launch contract, kicking off new space race Moon Express has received official verification of their launch contract from XPRIZE as part of the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, a global competition for privately funded teams to land an unmanned spac ... more		Student helps discover new planet, calculates frequency of Jupiter-like planets High school senior Dominick Rowan of Armonk, New York, is making discoveries about other worlds. Working with University of Texas at Austin astronomer Stefano Meschiari, Rowan has helped to find a J ... more

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Robot adds new twist to NIST antenna measurements and calibrations The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been pioneering antenna measurement methods for decades, but a new robot may be the ultimate innovation, extending measurements to highe ... more		New US space mining law to spark interplanetary gold rush Flashing some interplanetary gold bling and sipping "space water" might sound far-fetched, but both could soon be reality, thanks to a new US law that legalizes cosmic mining. ... more		Fossil fuels harm health from 'cradle to grave': report Trash, mulch and security: All jobs for troops in Washington Rising oceans to threaten 1.5 million Australians by 2050: report		Twin civilisations? How life on an exoplanet could spread to its neighbour Imagine two nearby exoplanets orbiting the same sun, each with its own indigenous civilisation. They're going through history either as companionable neighbours or deadly rivals. This is a familiar ... more
New Horizons' catches a wandering Kuiper Belt Object not far off NASA's New Horizons spacecraft recently took the closest images ever of a distant Kuiper Belt object - demonstrating its ability to observe numerous such bodies over the next several years if NASA a ... more		Prometheus up close about Saturn NASA's Cassini spacecraft spied details on the pockmarked surface of Saturn's moon Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across) during a moderately close flyby on Dec. 6, 2015. This is one of Cass ... more		Robot arm simulates close approach of ESA's asteroid mission The final approach to an asteroid has been practised for ESA's proposed Asteroid Impact Mission using a real spacecraft camera mounted on a robot arm. The 2020 AIM mission would find its way a ... more		New Visualization of Space Environment at Pluto This video shows a simulation of the space environment all the way out to Pluto in the months surrounding New Horizons' July 2015 flyby. At the time, scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight ... more

	UW roboticists learn to teach robots from babies Babies learn about the world by exploring how their bodies move in space, grabbing toys, pushing things off tables and by watching and imitating what adults are doing. But when roboticists want to t ... more		Peering Through Titan's Haze This composite image shows an infrared view of Saturn's moon Titan from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, acquired during the mission's "T-114" flyby on Nov. 13, 2015. The spacecraft's visual and infrared ... more

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