Scientists at the University of Glasgow together with the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Center and the Natural History Museum (London) have discovered the first evidence of water dissolving the surface of Mars. In a paper published in the Meteoritical Society’s journal MAPS, the research team outlines the results of tests on a 1.7-gram fragment of a Martian meteorite known as Nakhla, which was provided by the Natural History Museum. Nakhla, named after the town in Egypt where it landed in 1911 after being blasted from the surface of Mars by a massive impact around 10 million years ago, has been studied for decades by scientists around the world....

Orion experienced an issue with a power conditioning distribution unit (PCDU) shortly after acquiring signal with the Deep Space Network’s Canberra ground station at 12:41 a.m. CST. Specifically, the problem was that four of the latching current limiters responsible for downstream power suddenly switched off. These lower-level switches connect to the propulsion and heater subsystems. After teams confirmed the system was healthy, they successfully repowered the downstream components. There was no interruption of power to any critical systems, and there were no adverse effects on Orion’s navigation or communication systems....

Expedition 68 Flight Engineers Cassada and Rubio completed the majority of the primary objectives for the spacewalk, which included assembling a mounting bracket on the starboard side of the station’s truss assembly in preparation for the installation of a pair of International Space Station Rollout Solar Arrays (iROSAs). The pair completed the routing of cables on the 3A power channel, and began the installation process of a modification kit on the 1B power channel, which will act as a scaffolding for the new solar arrays....

A Northrop Grumman Stargazer L-1011 aircraft took off at 8:31 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida carrying ICON, on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, to launch altitude of about 39,000 feet (12,000 meters). The first launch opportunity around 9:30 was skipped due to communication issues between the ground team at Cape Canaveral and the aircraft. On the second attempt, the aircraft crew released its payload at 9:59 p....

A project team completed an assessment on December 1 of the ongoing solar array issue, which did not appear to fully deploy as planned after launch in late October. Initial ground tests determined additional motor operations are required to increase the probability of the latching Lucy’s array in place as intended, and the team has recommended additional testing. Spacecraft operations included discharging and charging the battery while pointed at Earth, moving the spacecraft to point to the Sun, operating the solar array motor with the launch day parameters, moving back to pointing at Earth, and then another battery discharge and recharge....

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, used synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the ALOS-2 satellite to produce a map showing surface displacement from the earthquakes. The post-quake imagery was acquired on July 8, 2019, and compared with April 8, 2018, data from the same region. Each color cycle represents 4.8 inches (12 centimeters) of ground displacement either toward or away from the satellite....

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter received a checkout and recharge of its power system on Friday, August 7, one week into its near seven-month journey to Mars with the Perseverance rover. This marks the first time the helicopter has been powered up and its batteries have been charged in the space environment. During the eight-hour operation, the performance of the rotorcraft’s six lithium-ion batteries was analyzed as the team brought their charge level up to 35%....

“Ingenuity not only provides imagery from an aerial perspective, but allows our team to be two places at once on Mars,” said Ken Farley of Caltech, Perseverance’s project scientist. “Sending the rover to survey and prospect in one location while launching the helicopter to survey another hundreds of meters away is a great time-saver. It can also help us explore areas the rover will never visit, as in this case....

Known as a “Ground Segment Test,” this is the first time commands to power on and test Webb’s scientific instruments have been sent to the fully-assembled observatory from its Mission Operations Center at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland. Since reliably communicating with Webb when in space is a mission-critical priority for NASA, tests like these are part of a comprehensive regimen designed to validate and ensure all components of the observatory will function in spacewith the complex communications networks involved in both sending commands, and downlinking scientific data....

Earlier today, navigators and mission controllers for NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter watched their computer screens as their spacecraft successfully performed its first deep-space maneuver. This first firing of Juno’s main engine is one of two planned to refine the spacecraft’s trajectory, setting the stage for a gravity assist from a flyby of Earth on October 9, 2013. Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. The deep-space maneuver began at 6:57 p....

The Juno spacecraft captured this image when the spacecraft was only 11,747 miles (18,906 kilometers) from the tops of Jupiter’s clouds — that’s roughly as far as the distance between New York City and Perth, Australia. The color-enhanced image, which captures a cloud system in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere, was taken on October 24, 2017 at 10:24 a.m. PDT (1:24 p.m. EDT) when Juno was at a latitude of 57.57 degrees (nearly three-fifths of the way from Jupiter’s equator to its north pole) and performing its ninth close flyby of the gas giant planet....

Studying clouds helps us to understand the atmosphere and how the water cycle works on Mars today, such as how water vapor is transported by the atmospheric circulation and how temperatures and water abundances vary with height. By observing the motion of clouds, we can also learn about wind speeds and directions high in the atmosphere, which we have no way of measuring otherwise. Despite being thin, these clouds still have an impact on heating and cooling of the present-day atmosphere, and in the past clouds may have played a much larger role in sustaining a warmer atmosphere that allowed liquid water to flow on the surface of Mars....

NASA’s first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016. The Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) passed a confirmation review Wednesday called Key Decision Point (KDP)-C. NASA officials reviewed a series of detailed project assessments and authorized the spacecraft’s continuation into the development phase. This narrated video provides an overview of the OSIRIS-REx mission, which will observe asteroid Bennu, collect a sample and return it to Earth for study....

The pandemic doesn’t seem to be changing parents’ minds about the importance of the flu vaccine. It could be a double whammy flu season this year as the nation already faces a viral deadly disease with nearly twin symptoms. And while public health experts have emphasized the importance of people of all ages receiving seasonal flu vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents may not be getting that message. Just a third of parents believe that having their child get the flu vaccine is more important this year, a national poll suggests....

Cancer researchers from Rice University suggest that a new man-made drug that’s already proven effective at killing cancer and drug-resistant bacteria could best deliver its knockout blow when used in combination with drugs made from naturally occurring toxins. “One of the oldest tricks in fighting is the one-two punch — you distract your opponent with one attack and deliver a knockout blow with another,” said José Onuchic of Rice’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP)....

In a study carried out in rats, researchers from the University of Cambridge used the device to improve the connection between the brain and paralyzed limbs. The device combines flexible electronics and human stem cells – the body’s ‘reprogrammable’ master cells – to better integrate with the nerve and drive limb function. Previous attempts at using neural implants to restore limb function have mostly failed, as scar tissue tends to form around the electrodes over time, impeding the connection between the device and the nerve....

At the heart of any electronic device is a cold, hard computer chip, covered in a miniature city of transistors and other semiconducting elements. Because computer chips are rigid, the electronic devices that they power, such as our smartphones, laptops, watches, and televisions, are similarly inflexible. Now a process developed by MIT engineers may be the key to manufacturing flexible electronics with multiple functionalities in a cost-effective way. The process is called “remote epitaxy” and involves growing thin films of semiconducting material on a large, thick wafer of the same material, which is covered in an intermediate layer of graphene....

Active ingredient inhibits infection with so-called pseudoviruses in the test tube, as shown by study at the University of Bonn. Scientists at the University of Bonn and the caesar research center have isolated a molecule that might open new avenues in the fight against SARS coronavirus 2. The active ingredient binds to the spike protein that the virus uses to dock to the cells it infects. This prevents them from entering the respective cell, at least in the case of model viruses....

Skiers, hikers, soldiers and others exposed to extreme cold temperatures can experience frostbite — a painful injury that occurs when ice crystals form in the skin. Many extremely cold areas are also remote, and delays in frostbite treatment can result in severe wounds, scarring and even limb amputation. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Biomaterials have developed a cream that prevents frostbite injuries in mice when applied to the skin 15 minutes before severe cold exposure....

Using data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, researchers from NorthWest Research Associates, or NWRA, identified small signals in the upper layers of the solar atmosphere, the corona, that can help identify which regions on the Sun are more likely to produce solar flares – energetic bursts of light and particles released from the Sun. They found that above the regions about to flare, the corona produced small-scale flashes – like small sparklers before the big fireworks....