The Pillars of Creation Revisited

 Pure Beauty

 perceived through the James Webb Space Telescope

Link to: https://webbtelescope.org/

Zhurong still going strong

 

For exactly a year today

China's Tianwen-1 probe has been busy

exploring and adjusting to its harsh Martian environment.

Link to: "Tianwen-1 mission marks first year on Mars"

Growing plants in lunar soil

 

Recent experiments have shown that

"terrestrial plants are capable of growth in lunar regolith"

but that major "metabolic challenges need to be surmounted".

Link to: "NASA-funded study breaks new ground in plant research"

Link to: "Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith present stress-associated transcriptomes that inform prospects for lunar exploration"

New Zealand has joined the Artemis Accords

 

With New Zealand signing the international agreement

there are presently eleven nations

committed to this "set of principles to guide the safe and sustainable

exploration and use of outer space".

Link to: Press release on the official website of the New Zealand Government.

News from Utopia Planitia

 

"Zhurong", the first Chinese rover to land on Mars,

is ready to go into operation there.

Link to related article in NATURE

Perseverance Mars Rover: all set to land

 

Wired.com have just published a concisely comprehensive article

with essential details relating to the

NASA Perseverance Mars Rover mission

and its impending landing on February 18th.

Link to: "wired.com"

Specks from Heaven for St Nicholas' Day

 Hayabusa 2  is about to land a small capsule

 with samples of rock and dust from asteroid Ryugu

 near Woomera in South Australia

on December 6th (local time).

Link to: article from "newscientist.com"

Link to: "Japan’s Journey to an Asteroid Ends With a Hunt in Australia’s Outback"