Space Exploration Thread

[gutza1]

Sorry for not keeping this updated. Here's some news on Artemis II:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/10/aii-core-weld-issues/

[The Chronicler]

The space probe Lucy recently completed a flyby of a small asteroid in the Asteroid Belt, mainly to make sure its systems are all functioning properly ahead of its primary mission of visiting several Trojan Asteroids near Jupiter over the next several years, but the images from this brief flyby revealed that this small asteroid not only has its own moon, but that moon also turns out to be a contact binary object.
https://www.space.com/nasa-lucy-asteroid-dinky-3-space-rocks-contact-binary

[gutza1]

On an unrelated note, it appears the US military's top-secret unmanned spaceplane, the X-37B, is preparing to launch aboard a... Falcon Heavy of all things, in order to test out "new orbits."

https://www.space.com/space-force-x-37b-spacex-falcon-heavy-1st-launch-dec-2023

The most obvious idea is that this is a mission to geostationary transfer orbit, which the X-37B's conceptual predeccessor's heat shield was rated for. However, the Falcon Heavy is theoretically capable of launching the X-37B all the way around the Moon, though I don't know if the X-37B's heat shield is rated for reentry on a lunar return trajectory. Whatever the mission is, it's definitely going to be interesting.

[The Chronicler]

A quite rare kind of exoplanet system has recently been confirmed, consisting of six "sub-Neptune" planets with "mathematically perfect" orbits close to their host star:
https://www.space.com/six-sub-neptunes-found-100-light-years-from-earth

[gutza1]

A quite rare kind of exoplanet system has recently been confirmed, consisting of six "sub-Neptune" planets with "mathematically perfect" orbits close to their host star:
https://www.space.com/six-sub-neptunes-found-100-light-years-from-earth

Yeah. This appears to have been a configuration left over from the beginning of the system, which is surprising.

[The Chronicler]

We know about the possibility of finding life on Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, or Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus. There's even been educated suggestions of life being possible under the ices of Pluto or even in the less intense upper atmosphere of Venus. But now, perhaps one of the most astonishing possible places to find life in the Solar System could be on Mercury under glaciers made of salt.
https://www.space.com/mercury-salt-glaciers-habitability

[The Chronicler]

https://www.space.com/uranus-neptune-similar-shades-of-blue-voyager-2-images

Uranus and Neptune are actually the same shade of blue-green. Apparently, the images that Voyager 2 had sent back in 1989 were artificially enhanced to make Neptune much more blue than would look in true visible light. In addition, it seems that Uranus turns more blue during the equinoxes and more green during the solstices, which might explain why the Voyager 2 images of that planet from 1986 are more green while some of the more recent images by telescopes appear more blue.