NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has captured dramatic footage of Phobos, Mars’ potato-shaped moon, crossing the face of the Sun. These observations can help scientists better understand the moon’s orbit and how its gravity pulls on the Martian surface, ultimately shaping the Red Planet’s crust and mantle.
Captured with Perseverance’s next-generation Mastcam-Z camera on April 2, the 397th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, the eclipse lasted a little over 40 seconds – much shorter than a typical solar eclipse involving Earth’s Moon. (Phobos is about 157 times smaller than Earth’s Moon. Mars’ other moon, Deimos, is even smaller.)
Category: Space
James Webb Telescope Sees Its First Star Light ⇢
Alise Fisher, writing on the JWST blog:
The James Webb Space Telescope is nearing completion of the first phase of the months-long process of aligning the observatory’s primary mirror using the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.
The team’s challenge was twofold: confirm that NIRCam was ready to collect light from celestial objects, and then identify starlight from the same star in each of the 18 primary mirror segments. The result is an image mosaic of 18 randomly organized dots of starlight, the product of Webb’s unaligned mirror segments all reflecting light from the same star back at Webb’s secondary mirror and into NIRCam’s detectors.
Challenger Artifacts Recovered ⇢
Artifacts that were recovered from the fallen space shuttle Challenger and prepared for presentation to the President of the United States have been recovered again, 36 years later, after they surfaced at auction among the collection of a NASA liaison to the White House.
Little is known about how or why the late James Foster Fanseen, who died in 2000, had come into possession of the small American flag and crew patch that were mounted to a plaque and inscribed to “Ronald Reagan, President of the United States.” Once recognized for what they were, though, the artifacts were restored to the proper hands, now at the Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, collectSPACE has learned.
SLS LEGO Sets ⇢
At least these versions of NASA’s new rocket won’t be hamstrung by years of delay … probably.
Steve Wozniak’s New Space Company ⇢
In a brief tweet yesterday, Steve Wozniak announced he is co-founding a new private space company.
The simple tweet and linked YouTube video provided few details about the company, Privateer. The short video features a combination of historic and modern videos of both rockets and the solar system (and a clip that vaguely resembles a Tesla robot on fire). In the YouTube description, they say Privateer space is “working to keep space safe and accessible to all humankind.”
Inspiration4 Crew to Use Apple Hardware for Health Study in Orbit ⇢
Zac Hall, writing at Space Explored:
SpaceX is flying four private citizens to orbit on a three-day mission called Inspiration4, and Apple hardware will be key in a first-of-its-kind research study happening during the flight. These products include Apple Watch Series 6, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPad mini 4, as selected by SpaceX.
Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman is funding the private spaceflight for four through Elon Musk’s space exploration company. Inspiration4 is also the center of a fundraising campaign to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the effort to cure childhood cancer.
Siri, What is an Astronaut ⇢
10 Years Later, NASA’s Post-Shuttle Vision Still Coming into Focus
Today marks a full decade since STS-135 — the final shuttle mission — lifted off. Atlantis and a crew of 4 delivered a year’s worth of supplies and many spare parts to the International Space Station, the on-orbit laboratory that the Shuttle was largely responsible for constructing.
Jason Snell was there for the launch:
Hard to believe this was 10 years ago today–and that this was my view of it. #STS135 and the end of the Shuttle era. pic.twitter.com/XmiTRicIRr
Nilay Patel’s Review of Starlink ⇢
I can’t really do this article justice with a single blockquote.
Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Michael Collins Has Died ⇢
Michael Collins—a two-time astronaut who piloted the command module during the historic Apollo 11 mission that landed the first humans on the Moon—died on Wednesday after battling cancer, his family said. He was 90 years old.
“He spent his final days peacefully, with his family by his side,” the family said in a statement. “Mike always faced the challenges of life with grace and humility, and faced this, his final challenge, in the same way. We will miss him terribly.” With Collins’ death, only 10 of the 24 humans who have flown into deep space remain alive: Collins’ colleague on the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin, as well as Bill Anders, Frank Borman, Charlie Duke, Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, Ken Mattingly, Harrison Schmitt, David Scott, and Tom Stafford.
Ingenuity Flies ⇢
What an amazing achievement for humankind:
Monday, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The Ingenuity team at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).
“Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk. “The X-15 was a pathfinder for the space shuttle. Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover did the same for three generations of Mars rovers. We don’t know exactly where Ingenuity will lead us, but today’s results indicate the sky – at least on Mars – may not be the limit.”
40 Years Ago, the Shuttle Launched ⇢
Matt Haskell at Spaceflight Insider marked yesterday’s anniversary with an outstanding column on the history of the program:
The morning of April 12, 1981, proved to be a history-making event. For many, that day stemmed careers, dreams and imaginations alike. On that inaugural launch day began 30 years of advances in spaceflight, technology, scientific research, and would eventually lead to a permanent presence of humanity in space, but not without tragedy. This is the story of the Space Shuttle.