Yesterday it was almost evening in Europe when ESA received the first signal from the spacecraft Rosetta. It confirmed that it regularly awakened after spending about two and a half years in hibernation. The testing phase started to ensure that all of its instruments are functioning properly. Rosetta is now en route to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
NASA has officially invited people from all over the world to register their names in the “Messages to Bennu” program. All those names will be recorded on a microchip that will travel aboard the OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) spacecraft, which is expected to start its mission in September 2016 for the asteroid 101955 Bennu to collect a sample to bring back to Earth.
The Chinese Chang’e 3 space probe, which includes the Yutu, which means Jade Rabbit, rover has successfully completed its landing on the Moon. The spacecraft was launched on December 1 and reached the lunar orbit in 5 days. Today it performed an automated maneuver that lasted about 12 minutes to descend to the Moon’s surface.
In the course of this week two different findings concerning Europa, one of the largest satellites of Jupiter, have been announced. They are the results of two completely separate research that by chance were published almost simultaneously. Another coincidence is that both findings are connected to a possibility that there are life forms on Europa.
