Mosaic of lunar North Pole CREDIT: NASA/JPL A shoebox-sized NASA-funded cubesat should create the most detailed, high-resolution map of lunar water ice ever attempted. Now scheduled for launch in 2020* as a secondary payload on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Exploration Mission (EM-1), the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper Mission (LunaH-Map) will spend two [...]
As seen in South China Morning Post | April 5, 2019 The University of Hong Kong’s Laboratory for Space Research specialises in planetary and space science, high-energy astrophysics and late-stage stellar evolution A satellite/telescope will soon be sent into space to observe galaxy clusters and dark matter University of Hong Kong Professor Emeritus Sun [...]
As seen in Forbes Science, March 10, 2019 | Author Bruce Dorminey Pallas, our solar system’s third largest and wholly unexplored asteroid, is the target for a potential SmallSat NASA flyby mission for possible launch in 2022. This remnant protoplanet, in fact, remains the largest unexplored planetary body inside the orbit of Neptune. Orbit [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | January 31,2019 | Bruce Dorminey Time and again we hear that we are behind the aerospace curve; that we should be farming peanuts on Mars by now; mining Helium-3 in some far-flung lunar lava tube, or living the dream in a space condo parked in low-Earth orbit. But nearing the [...]
As Seen In Forbes Science | January 14, 2019 | Author Bruce Dorminey Revolutionary new steam-powered space technology should enable future space probes to hop from asteroid to asteroid; around the surface of the Moon or Mars; or even on a far-flung Kuiper Belt object for decades at a time. It’s the product of a [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | January 13, 2019 | Author Bruce Dorminey Astrobiologists like to think that forming solar systems result in cauldrons of plenty; cornucopias of molecular compounds that make for terrestrial worlds just itching to form life. But observations of an eroding debris disk around the nearby red dwarf star AU Microscopii [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | December 31, 2018 On the cusp of yet another trip around the Sun, I found myself wondering how many alien civilizations within this sector of our Milky Way might have already come and gone? That is, bitten the dust due to wholly natural climate change long after their planet [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | December 11, 2018 Data from the asteroid ‘101955 Bennu’ --- the prime science target for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission --- reveal ubiquitous amounts of water locked inside clays, the mission’s science team reported. The team has been very pleasantly surprised by new analysis of high-resolution data from the spacecraft’s imaging [...]
As seen in Forbes Science | November 30, 2018 But more importantly, what can Mars’ inner workings tell us about the formation of planets like our own? In December, the InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) spacecraft will position its French-built surface seismometer only a few feet from where it landed. [...]
GLOBAL WARMING, I LOVE CO2, CO2 BENEFITS, CLIMATE CHANGE, FOREST FIRES, NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT, CO2 FERTILIZATION The 4th National Climate Assessment (NCA) was released Friday, November 23rd and was promptly greeted by wide media coverage and wringing of hands over its dire predictions for the planet’s future. Like the previous three assessments, it was mandated by the [...]
