Category Science

On August 25, 2012 Voyager 1, part of NASA’s Voyager Program, became the first spacecraft to cross the heliospause and enter the interstellar medium. Heliospause is the boundary of the heliosphere. It is a spherical region around the Sun that is filled with solar magnetic fields and the outward-moving solar wind. Two probes, Voyager 1 and 2, were launched in 1977 to study the outer planets in our solar system, but subsequently, their missions were extended to explore the world beyond. Voyager 2 too entered the interstellar medium on November 5, 2018. Both the probes remain operational past expectations and continue to send information about the outer expanses of the Solar system. Aboard each spacecraft is a golden record, a collection of sights, sounds and greetings from Earth. It is basically a 90-minute mixtape for any extraterrestrial passerby who might stumble upon one if the two Voyager spaceships at some points in the future.

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On November 26, 2011 NASA launched Curiosity Mars rover to explore crater Gale on the Red Planet. The rover was tasked to investigate the Martian climate and geology and assess whether the planet could support microbial life. In December 2012, Curiosity’s two-year mission was extended indefinitely. In 2019, it was revealed that Curiosity had detected the largest amount of methane ever measured during its mission on Mars. Scientists are looking for more evidence to find its source, because microbial life is an important source of methane on Earth. However, methane can also be created through interactions between rocks and water.

As established by the Mars Exploration Program, the main scientific goals of the MSL mission are to help determine whether Mars could ever have supported life, as well as determining the role of water, and to study the climate and geology of Mars. The mission results will also help prepare for human exploration.

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March 18, 2011: NASA’s Messenger spacecraft successfully entered the orbit of planet Mercury, becoming the first spacecraft to do so. During its stay in the planet’s orbit, Messenger’s instruments yielded significant data about Mercury’s magnetic field. It showed evidence of ‘water ice’ on the planet’s North Pole. Messenger’s mission lasted until 2015, when it crashed onto the surface, likely creating a crater in the planet’s northern terrain.

One of MESSENGER’s most remarkable images was its mosaic of our solar system, obtained Feb. 18, 2011, with all the planets visible except Uranus and Neptune—a visual counterpart to the image of the solar system taken by Voyager 1 on Feb. 14, 1990.

The spacecraft completed its primary yearlong mission March 17, 2012, having taken nearly 100,000 images of the surface of Mercury.

Among its initial discoveries was finding high concentrations of magnesium and calcium on Mercury’s night side, identifying a significant northward offset of Mercury’s magnetic field from the planet’s center, finding large amounts of water in Mercury’s exosphere, and revealing evidence of past volcanic activity on the surface.

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On November 4, 2010 the Deep Impact spacecraft, operating under the EPOXI mission, made a successful flyby of comet Hartley 2, making it the first probe to visit two comets. The Deep Impact mission was launched by NASA in 2005 to study the internal composition of comet Tempel 1. Its mission was later extended to include Hartley 2 flyby and the data collected showed that the two lobes of Hartley 2 were different in composition.

“Deep Impact has been a fantastic, long-lasting spacecraft that has produced far more data than we had planned,” said Mike A’Hearn, the Deep Impact principal investigator at the University of Maryland in College Park. “It has revolutionized our understanding of comets and their activity.” 

Deep Impact successfully completed its original bold mission of six months in 2005 to investigate both the surface and interior composition of a comet, and a subsequent extended mission of another comet flyby and observations of planets around other stars that lasted from July 2007 to December 2010. Since then, the spacecraft has been continually used as a space-borne planetary observatory to capture images and other scientific data on several targets of opportunity with its telescopes and instrumentation.

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On June 13, 2010 Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa returned to Earth after collecting more than 1500 regolith dust particles from the surface of asteroid 25143 Itokawa. By doing so, Hayabusa became the first successful sample return mission from an asteroid. In fact, Itokawa is the smallest asteroid ever visited and photographed by a spacecraft.

Itokawa was discovered on 26 September 1998 by astronomers with the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program at Lincoln Laboratory’s Experimental Test Site near Socorro, New Mexico, in the United States. It was given the provisional designation 1998 SF36. The body’s observation arc begins with its first observation by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey just one week prior to its official discovery observation. The minor planet was named in memory of Japanese rocket scientist Hideo Itokawa (1912–1999), who is regarded as the father of Japanese rocketry. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 6 August 2003.

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