All posts tagged: mission

Hera asteroid mission takes stunning images of Mars’s moon Deimos

Hera asteroid mission takes stunning images of Mars’s moon Deimos

Published by skeptic

Mars appears light blue in this near-infrared image taken by the Hera spacecraft. Its moon Deimos is the dark mark towards the centre of the image ESA A space exploration mission to study an asteroid that NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into three years ago has taken stunning bonus images of Mars and its moon Deimos en route to its final destination.  NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in 2022 was an attempt to show that bodies on a collision course with our planet could be deliberately redirected to avoid catastrophic impact. Observations from Earth showed that by smashing the 610-kilogram craft into the distant asteroid Dimorphos at 6.6 kilometres per second, NASA successfully changed the asteroid’s orbit. Dimorphos presents no risk to Earth and was merely acting as a test subject. Hera is a subsequent European Space Agency mission designed to get a closer look at the effect of the crash. The craft is around the size of a small car, weighing 1081 kilograms when fully fuelled. It launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on …

Ohio pastor convicted in dispute over sheltering homeless vows to continue his mission

Ohio pastor convicted in dispute over sheltering homeless vows to continue his mission

Published by skeptic

BRYAN, Ohio (AP) — For more than a year, a pastor who opened his church around the clock to shelter and give hope to homeless people has been at odds with an Ohio city over the building housing his ministry. On Tuesday, a city judge found Pastor Chris Avell guilty of violating zoning and fire codes in a criminal case. But his battle is not over. His attorneys, who last year filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city of harassing and humiliating the church and its congregants, have vowed to appeal the conviction. The church, called Dad’s Place, remains open to temporarily shelter people while it also appeals a separate civil case allowing the city of Bryan to enforce its zoning and fire codes on the building. Why did the city take on the church? Bryan Fire Chief Douglas Pool says the city’s main concern is that the building does not have the proper permits for people to be sleeping inside Dad’s Place. Inspectors first noticed people sleeping in the church a year ago after …

Double moonshot mission begins as lunar landers blast off on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket | Science, Climate & Tech News

Double moonshot mission begins as lunar landers blast off on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket | Science, Climate & Tech News

Published by skeptic

Two private missions heading for the moon have blasted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The lunar landers launched in the middle of the night from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Centre and are the latest to try to land on Earth’s nearest neighbour. America’s Firefly Aerospace and Japan’s ispace shared the ride to save cash but parted company an hour later and will take different routes. X This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once. You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies. To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only. Enable Cookies Allow Cookies Once Elon Musk‘s SpaceX posted images of the landers – named Resilience and …

Inside Ben Affleck’s rescue mission to reach ex Jennifer Garner and their three children

Inside Ben Affleck’s rescue mission to reach ex Jennifer Garner and their three children

Published by skeptic

Ben Affleck came to the rescue of his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, and their three children on Tuesday after the encroaching wildfires in Los Angeles sparked safety concerns for residents. The Batman actor was seen rushing to Jennifer’s home from his own Pacific Palisades house close by as evacuation orders came through for those living in the path of the wildfire.  The former couple married in 2005 and sadly split in 2018; they share kids Violet, 19, Fin, 16, and Samuel, 12. Recommended videoYou may also likeWATCH: Jennifer Lopez makes her first major appearance since Ben Affleck divorce filing Ben donned a green hooded jacket as he drove to their home to take the children away from the disaster. Jennifer has been staying in a rental home close to Ben’s abode while her Brentwood farmhouse is being renovated.  After ensuring his children were safe, the next day Ben checked on neighbours around his Brentwood suburb, ensuring they were okay.  © BACKGRIDBen was seen rushing to Jennifer’s house to rescue his three children The Los Angeles City Fire …

a new European space mission could get up close with a large asteroid that’s set to brush by Earth

a new European space mission could get up close with a large asteroid that’s set to brush by Earth

Published by skeptic

The European Space Agency has given the go-ahead for initial work on a mission to visit an asteroid called (99942) Apophis. If approved at a key meeting next year, the robotic spacecraft, known as the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses), will rendezvous with the asteroid in February 2029. Apophis is 340 metres wide, about the same as the height of the Empire State Building. If it were to hit Earth, it would cause wholesale destruction hundreds of miles from its impact site. The energy released would equal that from tens or hundreds of nuclear weapons, depending on the yield of the device. Luckily, Apophis won’t hit Earth in 2029. Instead, it will pass by Earth safely at a distance of 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometres), about one-twelfth the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Nevertheless, this is a very close pass by such a big object, and Apophis will be visible with the naked eye. Nasa and the European Space Agency have seized this rare opportunity to send separate robotic spacecraft to rendezvous …

What NASA’s mission to Jupiter moon can – and can’t – achieve | Science & Tech News

What NASA’s mission to Jupiter moon can – and can’t – achieve | Science & Tech News

Published by skeptic

Ever since the Galileo spacecraft flew by Jupiter’s icy moons in 1989, scientists interested in life beyond our planet have been desperate to go back. Europa Clipper, which blasted off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, is doing just that. Galileo found clear evidence that while Ganymede, Calisto and Europa have barren frozen surfaces, beneath them likely lie vast oceans of water. And, as far as any astrobiologist knows, where there’s water there’s a chance of life. Kept liquid by Jupiter’s huge tidal forces, Europa’s ocean may be the Solar System’s largest. Image: Artist’s illustration of the Europa Clipper spacecraft over the Europa moon, with Jupiter in the background. Pic: NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP Up to 100 miles deep, containing twice the volume of water in all Earth’s oceans, this ocean makes it a prime candidate for exploration. After a six-year, 1.8 billion-mile journey, Europa Clipper – the largest planetary science mission ever launched by NASA – will spend four years orbiting Jupiter making flybys of its icy moon. It will use nine instruments to …

One man’s mission to revive a forgotten, life-saving cancer drug | Cancer research

One man’s mission to revive a forgotten, life-saving cancer drug | Cancer research

Published by skeptic

For the past decade, the Dutch immunologist Jacques (Sjaak) Neefjes has been on a mission to bring back a cancer drug that hasn’t been available in Europe since 2004. “I’m still flabbergasted that a compound that could have helped thousands of people was taken off the market,” says Neefjes. Why it was removed seems something of a mystery, but as far as he can tell, it was simply a lack of demand. His latest research shows that this drug, aclarubicin, can improve the survival of people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) much better than other forms of chemotherapy. If it had been available in Europe for the past 20 years, Neefjes estimates that it could have helped 100,000 people. But while the maths sounds simple, the path of Neefjes’s research has been far from smooth. In his attempts to revive aclarubicin, he has smuggled small amounts from China, found old samples in a Finnish freezer, and funded part of his work using an inheritance from a Dutch MP who was murdered 10 years ago. “It …

‘I am their voice now’: the Tanzanian rapper with a mission to spread pride in his own colour | Global development

‘I am their voice now’: the Tanzanian rapper with a mission to spread pride in his own colour | Global development

Published by skeptic

Every day during school break, Ramadhani Idrisa Muhando and his friends would turn on their radio to listen to 20 Percent or Jose Chameleone, stars of bongo flava, a Tanzanian music genre influenced by hip-hop and R&B. So his love of music, he says, “has its roots in that schoolyard” in Tanga, on Tanzania’s east coast, but it was singeli, a style developed 125 miles away in Dar es Salaam, that changed the course of his life. “Boda boda [motorcycle] drivers played singeli on loudspeakers. Those new rhythms flooded our neighbourhoods and I couldn’t help but fall into its nets,” he says. Muhando – known as K-Zungu – is a singeli artist, the first the country has known with albinism. “Zungu means ‘white’ in Swahili, and K is the first letter of my grandfather’s name, Kaniki. That’s why I chose that name,” he says. Albinism, a hereditary condition that results in a lack of pigmentation in skin, hair and eyes, affecting one in 1,400 Tanzanians, is bound up in superstition. Some people believe myths that …

General election: Rishi Sunak says reforming welfare is ‘moral mission’ as he pledges to cut rising costs of benefits | Politics News

General election: Rishi Sunak says reforming welfare is ‘moral mission’ as he pledges to cut rising costs of benefits | Politics News

Published by Sam

The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign on Sunday as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week. The party is promising to cut the cost of welfare to the tune of £12bn a year by the end of the next parliament through measures aimed at helping people back into work. The plan includes a £700m investment in NHS mental health treatment to ensure 500,000 more people can access talking therapies by 2030. It also includes previously announced measures, such as removing benefits for people not taking jobs after 12 months. The number of working age people who are economically inactive has soared to record highs following the pandemic. The trend is thought to be driven mainly by those who have taken early retirement and people with long-term health conditions waiting for treatment on the NHS. But the Conservative Party has said the 40% increase of people out of work – from two million to 2.8 million since COVID – is unsustainable. It claims the cost …

My mission? A two-day voyage along the Norfolk coast to deliver potatoes for a chip shop | Sailing holidays

My mission? A two-day voyage along the Norfolk coast to deliver potatoes for a chip shop | Sailing holidays

Published by skeptic

The water glitters, rippled by a rising wind, and Victorious glides silently on three huge, maroon sails. We’re the only boat in sight, surrounded by grey sea and vast sky. Every direction offers a subtly different picture: patches of blue and fluffy clouds, billowing blue-black clouds, occasional rays of sunshine beaming into the Wash. A flock of Brent geese flies across our bows. Wash map “It just feels like she’s made for these waters. It’s magical,” purrs one of my five fellow sailors, . We’re taking potatoes from the Fenland channel of Fosdyke to make chips in Norfolk, and the hold of our immaculately restored 42ft shrimping smack will be packed with extra goods when we reach King’s Lynn. I’m more supernumerary than sailor, lacking any real knowledge of sails, ropes or knots, but if this is sailing, it’s the most beautiful and exhilarating thing. We feel at one with the water, riding the swell and wind like a bird, and a passing peregrine falcon treats us as such, swooping low past our mast with …