Astronews | Recent Space News Discoveries 08

Nasa has announced the two new missions selected for the Discovery Program

They are the Venusian Davinci+ and Veritas, departing between 2028 and 2030. Remain behind instead the missions directed to the satellites Io and Triton.

If you remember, in February 2020, NASA announced the finalist missions for the Discovery Program, the set of low-cost missions that since 1992 deepen the mysteries of our planetary system. 

There were four: Davinci+ and Veritas directed to Venus, Io Volcano Observer directed to the innermost of the four major satellites of Jupiter and Trident, the probe directed to Triton that should bring us back in the systems of the icy giants after forty years. Now NASA has announced the final selection, based on the study of feasibility and scientific return of the missions. It is Venus to win: Veritas and Davinci+ will leave in the launch window between 2028 and 2030.

Juno probe has Ganymede in its Sights

These days NASA’s Juno probe is engaged in a close encounter with the Solar System’s largest moon, Ganymede. This will be the first flyby of the icy world since the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft jointly observed the moon in 2000. New Horizons also got a quick snap of Ganymede as it slingshotted around Jupiter on its way out to Pluto in 2007, but from a distance of 3.5 million kilometers away. Juno’s pass on Monday 7 will get much closer, approaching within 1038 kilometers of the surface.

The Milky Way? Neither unique nor rare

Astronomers of the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have observed UGC 10738, a nearby, edge-on Milky Way-like galaxy, and found that it has distinct thick and thin disks similar to those of our own Milky Way Galaxy. 

China's Advanced 'Artificial Sun' Fusion Reactor Just Broke a New World Record

China has achieved a new milestone in humanity's experiments to harness the power of the stars. On 4 June last, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' fusion machine reached 120 million degrees Celsius and clung onto this for 101 seconds.

Korea held the previous record of 100 million °C for 20 seconds.

Here's who our stellar neighbors are

A catalog published in Astronomy & Astrophysics - compiled taking into account the latest data collected by the ESA Gaia space mission - lists the main objects within a radius of 30 light years from the Sun: 541 stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets distributed on 339 star systems

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Credits: minute 1:53 NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Credits: Ron Miller

Credits: Mark A. Garlick / MarkGarlick.com 

Credits: Nasa/Shutterstock/Storyblocks/Elon Musk/SpaceX/ESA/ESO

Credits: Flickr