Category Astronomy/Space

Crash Test Cameras

2017 edition of NASA Spinoffs. NASA innovations we use in our daily lives. Here are some of our favorite things we bet you didn’t know use space technology.
1.Crash Test Cameras: Parachutes are a key part of the landing system for many of our spacecraft, but before we send them into orbit — or beyond — we have to make sure that they’re going to work as designed. One important component of testing is a video that captures every millisecond as the chute opens, to see if it’s working and if not, what went wrong. Integrated Design Tools built a camera for us that could do just that: rugged and compact, it can film up to 1,000 frames/s and back up all that data almost as fast...

The whole northern region of Saturn is bathed in sunlight in this view from late 2016,. The hexagon-shaped jet-stream is fully illuminated Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Sunlight truly has come to Saturn’s north pole. The whole northern region is bathed in sunlight in this view from late 2016, feeble though the light may be at Saturn’s distant domain in the solar system. The hexagon-shaped jet-stream is fully illuminated here. In this image, the planet appears darker in regions where the cloud deck is lower, such the region interior to the hexagon. Mission experts on Saturn’s atmosphere are taking advantage of the season and Cassini’s favorable viewing geometry to study this and other weather patterns as Saturn’s northern hemisphere approaches Summer solstice.

This view l...

The discrepancy between the cosmological parameters in the modern Universe and the Universe shortly after the Big Bang can be explained by the fact that the proportion of dark matter has decreased. The authors of the study could calculate how much dark matter could have been lost and what the corresponding size of the unstable component would be. Researchers may explore how quickly this unstable part decays and say if dark matter is still disintegrating. CREDIT MIPT Press Office USAGE RESTRICTION

Russian scientists have discovered that the proportion of unstable particles in the composition of dark matter in the days immediately following the Big Bang was no more than 2 – 5%...

Image1: Far side of the Moon, photographed by Apollo 16
Image2: Valles Marineris, Mars. Credit: NASA

China has set out its space plans for the next 5 years, including soft landing a probe on the far side of the moon around 2018 and launching its first Mars probe by 2020. “To explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is a dream we pursue unremittingly,” read a white paper. It says China aims to use space for peaceful purposes and to guarantee national security, and to carry out cutting edge scientific research.

The white paper released by the information office of China’s Cabinet points to the growing ambitions of China’s already rapidly advancing space program...