Daily News update on – Science

Spaceflight Now

The final two spacecraft in Airbus’s four-satellite, 600 million-euro commercial Pléiades Neo Earth observation fleet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after launch from French Guiana Tuesday night, falling victim to a failure of a European Vega …

Space.com

“We’ve actually been able to do a whole lot more than what we claimed and promised to do,” Bruce Banerdt, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and principal investigator of the InSight mission, told Space.com …

Space.com

The wild asteroid concept would see far-future humans gather up rock rubble in a massive bag made of nanofiber mesh, allowing future astronauts to build a habitat inside the loose asteroid bits as the rocks spin in space.

Spaceflight Now

A Vega C rocket on its launch pad in French Guiana with the Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging satellites inside the payload fairing. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/S. Martin. Two Pléiades Neo Earth observation satellites are set to join Airbus’s constellation …

Space.com

The medium-lift Vega C lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Tuesday (Dec. 20) at 8:47 p.m. EST (10:47 p.m. local time; 0147 GMT on Dec. 21), carrying two satellites for Airbus’ Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging constellation.

Space.com

NASA has called off a planned spacewalk at the last moment after a large piece of Russian space debris came dangerously close to the orbital outpost. NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada were getting ready …

CNN

A gift from the skies is coming just in time for the holidays — the Ursids meteor shower. This celestial event will be the last meteor shower of 2022. The Ursids typically produce only around five to 10 visible meteors an hour, according to EarthSky.

Space.com

“The observatory and instruments are all in good health, and were not in any danger while Webb’s onboard fault management system worked as expected to keep the hardware safe,” NASA officials wrote.

Phys.Org

Ocean warming is driving an increase in the frequency and severity of marine heatwaves, causing untold damage to coral reefs. Tropical corals, which live in symbiosis with tiny single-celled algae, are sensitive to high temperatures, and exhibit a …

CBS News

CAPE CANAVERAL – It could be the end of the red dusty line for NASA’s InSight lander, which has fallen silent after four years on Mars. The lander’s power levels have been dwindling for months because of all the dust coating its solar panels.