Tag Archives: Science Weekend

What do small satellites called CubeSats and the NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter have in common? It turns out that open-source software developed for CubeSats, small spacecraft, and instruments is being used by the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.

This Sunday the Ingenuity helicopter developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will attempt to take-off and fly on Mars, something humans have never attempted before on another planet.

The Mars Perseverance rover systems checked out just fine, thank you very much, so mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab took it for a short drive, and planned another for late yesterday and today.

Getting to Mars and landing, though time consuming and difficult, was only the beginning. Now that the Perseverance rover is on the surface it’s time to check out its systems and prepare to get to work.

This past week the University of Guelph physics department in collaboration with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Montreal Centre and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal spent an evening discussing the latest news and research in the exciting field of exoplanets.

Quantum science holds the promise for exciting discoveries that will shape our world as we research and learn more about the quantum world. In this Science Weekend feature we have a public lecture from the Perimeter Institute with Karen Hallberg.

Featured on the NASA Gravity Assist video podcast recently was the dwarf planet Ceres and its mysterious Occator crater.

Jupiter and Saturn are in the midst of a great planetary dance, one which from Earth will result in the two planets appearing side by side in the night sky culminating in the great planetary conjunction on December 21. Even if the skies aren’t clear where you are, you’ll be able to virtually watch the event.

It was scripted to happen this way, but when it did what it was supposed to do, ground controllers and scientists elation was clearly evident. What had just happened? A spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, had just “touched” down, albeit it for seconds, on asteroid Bennu, grabbed a bunch of “dust and pebbles,” and taken off again with its prize. It lasted mere seconds, yet took years to …

This week on Science Weekend we look at new stunning images of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The active moon which has a subsurface salt ocean is revealing more of itself from data retrieved from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.