[ad_1] In September India lost contact with its Vikram lander just a mile above the Moon’s surface, and now NASA has confirmed photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show where it impacted. The actual discovery, however, has been credited to an amateur, Shanmuga Subramanian. As the New York Times reported, he is an Indian […]
Category: Space
Europe’s space agency approves the Hera anti-asteroid mission
[ad_1] Hera will carry two CubeSats that can fly extremely close to the asteroid’s surface before touching down. Those briefcase-sized spacecraft will act like drones, capturing vital data about the impact crater and giving scientists data including the mass of the asteroid that will help them deduce its composition. The aim, ESA said, is to […]
Astronomers find stellar black hole so large it shouldn’t exist
[ad_1] The team used China’s Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) to find stars orbiting objects that are seemingly invisible — a technique that had been proposed back in 1783, but hadn’t really been possible until recently. They then used both the US’ Keck I telescope and Spain’s Gran Telescopio Canarias to determine […]
India’s lunar lander crashed within 500 meters of its target
[ad_1] According to the report, Vikram’s braking thrusters malfunctioned — though we don’t know why — and it crashed within 500 meters of its designated landing site. All is not lost, though. All of the eight scientific instruments are still functioning and “providing valuable scientific data,” said Jitendra Singh, minister of state for the Department […]
Google Photos lets you manually tag faces (as long as it sees them)
[ad_1] Specifically, you can’t just pull up a photo and start tagging your friends and family. To be able to take advantage of the feature, Photos’ face recognition algorithm needs to first recognize there are in fact human or animal faces in a photo. There are instances in which the app sometimes fails to correctly […]
Astronomers create first global map of Saturn’s moon Titan
[ad_1] Just shy of two thirds of the surface is dominated by flat plains, but 17 percent of it (mostly at the equator) is blanketed in dunes. Another 14 percent is hilly or mountainous, while 1.5 percent of it has a labyrinthine terrain shaped by erosion and rain. What you don’t see is just as […]
SpaceX’s first Starship pops its top during a ‘pressure test’ in Texas
[ad_1] SpaceX has already moved on to manufacturing its next generation of ‘Mk3’ Starship frames, but the original model Elon Musk stood in front of two months ago popped open during an apparent “pressure test” at the company’s Boca Chica, TX site. According to site watchers like LabPadre, the top flew some 500 feet in […]
Sling TV now streams on Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max
[ad_1] Sling TV users now have another way to stream their content. Beginning today, Sling TV is available on Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max. Users can control Sling with built-in voice controls on those devices, and on Nest Hub Max, they can pause and resume content on Sling using gesture controls — hold up […]
SpaceX successfully completes Crew Dragon engine tests without an explosion
[ad_1] The company conducted the tests near Landing Zone 1 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, starting with two one-second burns for two of the Crew Dragon’s 16 Draco thrusters. Those thrusters will be used for maneuvering and attitude control, as well as for re-orientation of the spacecraft. The Crew Dragon team then […]
NASA renames Kuiper Belt object following controversy
[ad_1] NASA’s nickname for the distant Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, Ultima Thule, has been more than a little contentious. While it has innocuous meanings, Ultima Thule is also the term white supremacists use to refer to a mythical homeland. The agency is sidestepping that controversy, however. It just officially named the object Arrokoth, or […]