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James Webb Space Telescope was hit by a tiny space rock – but it’s OK

One of the mirrors of NASA’s huge new space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, was hit by a small space rock larger than anything tests on the ground involved

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Space

How lessons learned from space exploration could feed the world

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Space

The rise of SpinLaunch, the company planning to hurl things into space

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https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/jma-eng/satellite/index.html Artist?s impression of Himawari-8 and Himawari-9

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Betelgeuse star dimming puzzle solved by chance with weather satellite

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$Mare Crisium is a large, dark, basaltic plain on the Moon that filled an ancient asteroid impact. Basaltic plains on the Moon were created by early volcanic eruptions. Mare Crisium was flooded with basaltic lava, a dark, runny lava commonly found on Earth. Basaltic plains on the Moon are also known as lunar maria, because of a mistaken belief by early astronomers that these dark areas were oceans ? ?maria? is the Latin word for ?seas.? We now know these spots to be plains of basalt created by early volcanic eruptions, but the nomenclature of ?maria? (plural) or ?mare? (singular) remains. The basalts in Mare Crisium range in age from 2.5 to 3.3 billion years old! These dates come from measuring the radioactive isotope signatures of samples returned from Mare Crisium by the Soviet Luna 24 mission. Along the rim of Mare Crisium lies an outer boundary of wrinkle ridges. Wrinkle ridges are commonly found in places where the surface has contracted. As the surface is compressed, it bends and fractures, and can form complicated patterns of faults and folds.$