Space News Weekly Recap: India’s first private spaceflight, ISRO Mars return, and more

Space News Weekly Recap: India’s first private spaceflight, ISRO Mars return, and more

ISRO’s plans for Mars return During a presentation on ISRO’s future missions, Anil Bharadwaj, Director of the Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory, announced that the space agency planned to send a probe to the red planet. According to the initial plans charted out by the Indian space agency, it will build a lunar lander and rover […]

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James Webb Space Telescope resumes science operations after glitch

James Webb Space Telescope resumes science operations after glitch

MIRI mechanism issue On August 24, Webb engineers discovered that a grating wheel mechanism which supports the telescope’s “medium-resolution spectroscopy” (MRS) mode was showing signs of increased friction. The wheel is only used for one of the telescope’s four modes, which includes imaging, low-resolution spectroscopy, coronagraphic imaging and MRS. After preliminary health checks and investigations, […]

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Webb captures ‘haunting portrait’ of the pillars of creation

Webb captures ‘haunting portrait’ of the pillars of creation

This is not an illustration of dementors from the Harry Potter universe, nor is it a digital artist’s imagination of what spirits look like. This is actually an image of the pillars of creation—clouds of interstellar gas in the Eagle Nebula—captured by the James Webb Space Telescope in the mid-infrared spectrum. These pillars were first […]

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Webb captures galaxies merging through shroud of dust

Webb captures galaxies merging through shroud of dust

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently released an image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, showing two galaxies plunging into one another in a galactic merger. The galactic merger is named IC 1623 and lies around 270 million light-years away from us in the constellation Cetus. Starburst caused by galactic merger By colliding into […]

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Space news weekly recap: Artemis I cryogenic test to Webb images of Mars

Space news weekly recap: Artemis I cryogenic test to Webb images of Mars

NASA’s Artemis 1 cryogenic tanking demonstration test After the demonstration, launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said that all the objectives have been met. After hours of issues, NASA eventually managed to load nearly 1 4 million litres of fuel into the rocket. After the aborted launch attempt on September 3, the space agency had replaced two […]

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James Webb Space Telescope captures clearest view of Neptune’s rings in decades

James Webb Space Telescope captures clearest view of Neptune’s rings in decades

NASA released a James Webb Space Telescope image that captured Neptune and its rings. This is the clearest image of the icy planet and its ring since the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by it in 1989. Apart from Neptune’s several bright, narrow rings, the Webb image also shows Neptune’s fainter dust bands. “It has been […]

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James Webb Space Telescope runs into technical issue

James Webb Space Telescope runs into technical issue

NASA scientists have observed a technical problem with the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) instrument. Since its launch, the Webb telescope has been offering scientists unprecedented views into the universe beyond our planet, the most recent of which was the telescope’s first images and spectra of Mars. The space agency has convened an […]

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James Webb Space Telescope takes its first images and spectra of Mars

James Webb Space Telescope takes its first images and spectra of Mars

The European Space Agency (ESA) released the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) first images and infrared spectrum of Mars. The Webb telescope captured its first images and spectra of the red planet on September 5, 2022. Webb is situated approximately 1.5 million kilometres away from our planet at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2). From […]

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Space news weekly recap: Blue Origin rocket crash, diamonds in a meteorite, and more

Space news weekly recap: Blue Origin rocket crash, diamonds in a meteorite, and more

Last week, we were reminded that spaceflight is still hard when Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin’s rocket crashed back to Earth shortly after launch. Fortunately, no one was aboard the spacecraft and nobody was injured during the mishap. Read more about the crash and other interesting news on our weekly space news recap. Blue Origin rocket […]

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Space news weekly recap: China’s plans for lunar minerals, Indian reusable rocket and more

Space news weekly recap: China’s plans for lunar minerals, Indian reusable rocket and more

While NASA began its work to replace the faulty hydrogen seal on the Artemis 1 mission’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, ISRO announced that it will be working on designing and building a reusable launch vehicle for the global market. Read about al the interesting space news that happened over the last week in our […]

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