Skip to main content

NASA's 2018 to do list includes mission to 'touch' Sun

Washington: NASA is turning 60 in 2018 and the agency is looking forward to launching a slew of important missions in the coming year, including one to "touch" the Sun.
NASA's Parker Solar Probe is scheduled for launch in 2018 to explore the Sun's outer atmosphere



The probe will use Venus' gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun, according to a NASA statement.
The spacecraft will fly through the Sun's atmosphere as close as 6.2 million kilometres to our star's surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and closer than any spacecraft has gone before.
The Parker Solar Probe will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation.
The primary science goals for the mission are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles.
In 2018, NASA will also add to its existing robotic fleet at the Red Planet with the InSight Mars lander designed to study the interior and subsurface of the planet .
The US space agency's first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, is scheduled to arrive at the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in August 2018, and will return a sample for study in 2023.
Launching no later than June 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will search for planets outside our solar system by monitoring 200,000 bright, nearby stars.
To continue the long-term record of how Earth's ice sheets, sea level, and underground water reserves are changing, NASA will also launch the next generation of two missions - ICESat-2 and GRACE Follow-On - in 2018.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As many as 12 killed in New York’s deadliest fire in decades

More than 160 firefighters helped bring the blaze under control. (Source: Fire Department New York/Twitter) A massive fire ignited accidentally by a three-year-old boy swept through a five-story apartment building in New York, killing at least 12 people including a toddler and injuring four others in the deadliest blaze to hit the city in decades. The fire broke out around 6:50 pm (local time) yesterday on the first floor of the Prospect Avenue apartment in the Bronx borough of the city and spread quickly, officials said, adding that the cause of the blaze is under investigation. “We found that this fire started in a kitchen on the first floor,” fire commissioner Daniel Nigro said. “It started from a young boy, three and a half years old, playing with the burners on the stove. The fire got started, the mother was not aware of it – she was alerted by the young man screaming.” The boy’s mother fled with her two children, leaving the door to the apartment open – allowing t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Medley of agencies tasked with enforcing California’s marijuana laws

One of an assortment of marijuana strains on display during the High Times Harvest Cup in San Bernardino, California. (AP/File) Licensed businesses around California can begin legally growing and selling marijuana for recreational use Monday, and a hodgepodge of enforcement agencies will be trying to make sure they adhere to a slew of new pot laws. Since no single agency has overarching responsibility, supporters and opponents of legalization worry how well the laws will be followed. Three state agencies will issue a combined 19 types of permits to growers, retailers, manufacturers and distributors. Each agency has enforcement officers tasked with cracking down on unlicensed operators. In addition, other state agencies such as Fish and Wildlife and the Narcotic Enforcement Bureau said they will rely on marijuana task forces already in place to continue eradicating illegal growers and sellers. The newly created state Bureau of Cannabis Control, which licenses retail outl...
Post a Comment
Read more

China recovers $112 million in misused poverty relief funds

China’s government has pledged to wipe out poverty by 2020. (AP file photo) Chinese authorities have recouped 730 million yuan ($112.20 million) in misappropriated funds as part of an investigation into the country’s national poverty-reduction scheme, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. Nearly 450 people have been charged for offences relating to the misused funds in an inspection of 28 provinces, said Xinhua, citing the Ministry of Finance and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. The report gave no details on how the funds were misused. China’s government has pledged to wipe out poverty by 2020, targeting 70 million people living below the poverty line, but researchers and social workers say a lasting solution will take much longer. China has spent 196.1 billion yuan ($30.14 billion) on poverty relief over the past four years, said Xinhua. Earlier this month, Hu Zejun, the head of the National Audit Office, said...
Post a Comment
Read more