Kepler mission announced today it has verified 1 284 new planets – the single largest finding of planets to date. "This announcement more than doubles the number of confirmed planets from Kepler and gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star…
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has lost communication with their flagship spacecraft, X-Ray Astronomy Satellite “Hitomi" (ASTRO-H), on March 26, 2016. The 2 700-kg satellite, developed in conjunction with NASA, was launched on February 17…
After two failed attempts, Meteor mission was successfully launched at 03:05 UTC on March 23, 2016. Instruments needed for the mission, along with more than 3 ½ tons of supplies were packed inside an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft and launched via the United…
Jason-3, a US – European oceanography satellite launched just over a month ago, has produced its first complete science map of global sea surface height, capturing the current signal of the 2015/16 El Niño. The map was generated from the first 10 days of data…
New observations of the dwarf planet Ceres, made by the HARPS spectrograph at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile show its bright spots become brighter during the day and show other variations, not only those changes related to planet's rotation. The results…
In a joint space exploration effort, ESA and Roscosmos have successfully launched their ExoMars 2016 mission to planet Mars. The spacecraft was launched aboard Russian Proton-M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 09:31 UTC on March 14, 2016. It will…
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006. During the next six months, MRO used hundreds of dips into the top of the Martian atmosphere to gradually adjust the size of the orbit and stabilize at nearly circular orbit at 250 to…
When comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) made its historic encounter with planet Mars in October 2014, passing roughly 140 000 km (87 00 miles) from its surface, it wreaked havoc on the magnetic environment around Mars. The effect, temporary but profound, was measured…
A team of experts from Moscow's University of Mechanical Engineering (MAMI) is getting ready to launch the Mayak satellite into space and have gathered enough funding for the final test stage of the spacecraft, they announced on March 3, 2016. Once launched,…
The European Space Agency (ESA) has established the ExoMars programme to research the question if life ever existed on Mars. The programme will investigate the Martian environment through two missions. The first one, consisting of an Orbiter plus and Entry, Descent…
