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NASA Wants to Send a Mission to Neptune's Moon Triton

In the coming years, NASA has some bold plans to build on the success of the New Horizons mission. Not only did this spacecraft make history by conducting the first-ever flyby of Pluto in 2015, it has since followed up on that by making the first encounter in history with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) — 2014 MU69 (aka Ultima Thule ). Given the wealth of data and stunning images that resulted from these events (which NASA scientists are still processing), other similarly ambitious missions to explore the outer solar system are being considered. For example, there is the proposal for the Trident spacecraft, a Discovery-class mission that would reveal things about Neptune's largest moon, Triton. These findings were presented at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2019, which took place from March 19th to 22nd in The Woodlands, Texas. This annual conference allows planetary science specialists from around the world to come together to share mission proposals an...
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Cold Atom Laboratory ( CAL )

OVERVIEW


Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) is an experimental instrument being developed that was originally scheduled for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2017.It was then delayed until a scheduled launch on a SpaceX CRS-12 rocket in August 2017.It launched Successfully on May 21, 2018 to ISS, aboard on Orbital ATK Cygnus Spacecraft, atop on Antares Rocket, from NASAsN Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The instrument will create extremely cold conditions in the microgravity environment of the ISS leading to the formation of Bose Einstein Condensates that are a magnitude colder than those that are created in laboratories on Earth.In a space-based laboratory, up to 20 seconds interaction times and as low as 1 picokelvin temperatures are achievable, and it could lead to exploration of unknown quantum mechanical phenomena and test some of the most fundamental laws of physics.NASA's JPL scientists state that the CAL investigation could advance knowledge in the development of extremely sensitive quantum detectors, which could be used for monitoring the gravity of Earth and other planetary bodies, or for building advanced navigation devices.

The initial mission will have a duration of 12 months with up to five years of extended operation.

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