COLUMBIA, Md. and HOUSTON, May 16, 2022 (Universities Space Research Association PR) — A team of scientists, including Dr. Germán Martínez from the Universities Space Research Association, just published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This study indicates there are seasonal energy imbalances in the amount of solar energy absorbed and released by Mars which is a likely cause of dust storms and could play an important role in understanding the climate and atmosphere of the red planet. 

BOULDER (University of Colorado at Boulder PR) — Billions of years ago, a series of volcanic eruptions broke loose on the moon, blanketing hundreds of thousands of square miles of the orb’s surface in hot lava. Over the eons, that lava created the dark blotches, or maria, that give the face of the moon its familiar appearance today.

STRASBOURG, France (Europlanet Society PR) — An international team of researchers has used seasonal variations to identify likely sub-surface deposits of water ice in the temperate regions of Mars where it would be easiest for future human explorers to survive. The results are being presented this week by Dr Germán Martínez at the European Planetary Science Conference (EPSC) 2021.

Lunar and Planetary Institute Announcement

In 2024, NASA will launch the Artemis III mission to the Moon’s South Pole, the first human mission to the surface of the Moon in the 21st century. In preparation for this historic mission, NASA is now planning the science activities to be executed by the crew of two. The Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is forming a Science Definition Team (SDT) that will pull from existing community documents (the LEAG Roadmap, Decadal surveys, SCEM report, ASM report) to develop the detailed science objectives to achieve the science goals that have already been released by the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) in the Artemis Science Plan.

Houston, Texas and Columbia, MD (USRA/LPI PR) — A new study reveals the Chicxulub impact crater may have harbored a vast and long-lived hydrothermal system after the catastrophic impact event linked to the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute

HOUSTON and COLUMBIA, Md., May 17, 2019 (LPI/USRA PR) — The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), managed by Universities Space Research Association (USRA), has compiled and made available an atlas of the Moon’s south pole ( https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/lunar-south-pole-atlas/). Given NASA’s recent direction to implement Space Policy Directive-1 landing astronauts at the south pole by 2024, the LPI has compiled a series of maps, images, and illustrations designed to provide context and reference for those interested in exploring this area.

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In June 2018 NASA’s Curiosity Rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to snap photos of the intensifying haziness the surface of Mars, caused by a massive dust storm. The rover is standing inside Gale Crater looking out to the crater rim. The photos span about a couple of weeks, starting with a shot of the area before the storm appeared. (Credits: NASA)

WASHINGTON (National Academies PR) – Despite significant cuts to NASA’s Planetary Science Division budget early in this decade, the space agency has made impressive progress in meeting goals outlined in the 2013-2022 planetary decadal survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, says a new midterm assessment from the National Academies.

The report notes that the agency met or exceeded the decadal survey’s recommendations for funding research and analysis, and for technology programs. However, NASA has not achieved the recommended timeline for New Frontiers and Discovery missions for the decade. At least one more New Frontiers mission and three Discovery missions should be selected before the end of the decade in order to achieve the schedule recommended in Vision and Voyages.
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HOUSTON (USRA PR) — The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) is proud to announce NASA’s recent selection of scientists from USRA’s Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Arecibo Observatory, and colleagues at six universities to be one of the nine initial teams in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). SSERVI is a new organization that expands the scope of the NASA Lunar Science Institute to one that includes near-Earth asteroids and the moons of Mars.

The LPI/JSC team is led by Dr. David A. Kring, Senior Staff Scientist at the LPI and the founding Principal Investigator of the Center for Lunar Science and Exploration. Under the auspices of SSERVI, the team will continue to integrate science and exploration activities in a coordinated study of the Moon and the asteroids that bombard the Earth-Moon system. Those studies will include observations of existing near-Earth asteroids, studies of past collisional events in the Earth-Moon system, and the collisional evolution of the asteroid belt that delivers those objects to near-Earth space.

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BOULDER, CO (March 18, 2013) – Golden Spike, the first company planning to undertake human lunar expeditions for countries, individuals and corporations around the world, announced today that it will hold an international scientific workshop in October to explore the kinds of landing sites, experiments, and geological traverses their astronauts will undertake on the Moon starting by 2020. The theme of the workshop is what lunar science will be like after 20 Golden Spike human expeditions to different places around the Moon.

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