It's an exciting time to be alive! Some major space discoveries are underway and I have some good news...and some bad news in this Podcast Special article. BTW, not a fan of reading? Listen to my podcast HERE!
Humanity's Second Lunar Mission
Yes! You heard that right! NASA is currently working to launch a lunar mission i.e., Artemis. But there are more reasons to be excited about this initiative - Artemis might just be the gateway for the Second Lunar touchdown mission AKA Moon Landing after the historic Apolo 11 in 1969.
So what exactly is Artemis about?
So what exactly is Artemis about?
So NASA's Artemis mission is the talk of the town. Though its grand launch was spoiled by some engine-related issues that its engineer's detected which postponed its launch date (which is now expected to be somewhere around the end of September), the mission itself promises huge feats for mankind. The main star of the show is the choice of rocket i.e., Space Launch System, which is by far one of the strongest rockets ever created. The actual payload (or the thing that will be blasted into space) of SLS is the Orion Spacescraft which is going to go farthest a human space vehicle has ever went to.
Artemis is divided into three missions, Artemis 1, 2 & 3. Artemis 1 is going to be an uncrewed test flight around and beyond the Moon. This will be the first mission to launch and will probably be executed this year (2022). Artemis 2 will be a crewed flight beyond the Moon, taking, humans the farthest they’ve ever been in space. This will take place no earlier than 2024. And finally, Artemis 3, will a moon touchdown mission that will land the first female astronaut and the first astronaut of color on the Moon. The astronauts will spend a week performing scientific studies on the moon's surface. This final mission is expected to be brought to fruition in 2025.
However, the Artemis mission is a major route towards accomplishing NASA's ambitious "Moon to Mars" mission which intends to make space travel a more normal place activity for mankind. In the long run, we might have a habitable base on both mars and the moon by the virtue of missions like Artemis.
Earth-Lookalike Planet Discoveries
Another exciting piece of news from the space world! We found evidence of carbon dioxide outside our solar systems. There are two reasons why this is huge. 1) This is the first-ever evidence of carbon dioxide existing outside our galaxy. 2) Carbon dioxide is the beginning of any life form. So the existence of carbon gas could inadvertently solidify our belief that extra-terrestrial organisms may just very well exist outside our solar system. We may not be alone!
NASA’s James Webb telescope detected the carbon dioxide in a gas giant orbiting a Sun-like star (hence why it is called an exoplanet), around, 700 light-years away. This exoplanet is dubbed as WASP-39b and is around 1.3 times the diameter of Jupiter. While the discovery itself is not a screaming proof of the existence of ET's, it is a step towards it (I talk more about this in my recent podcast episode - Click on the title below to listen on either apple podcast, Spotify, or google podcast).
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