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NASA just lost contact with a Mars orbiter, and will soon lose another one

NASA has lost contact with one of its three spacecraft orbiting Mars, the agency announced Tuesday. Meanwhile, a second Mars orbiter is perilously close to running out of fuel, and the third mission is running well past its warranty.

Ground teams last heard from the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft on Saturday, December 6. β€œTelemetry from MAVEN had showed all subsystems working normally before it orbited behind the red planet,” NASA said in a short statement. β€œAfter the spacecraft emerged from behind Mars, NASA’s Deep Space Network did not observe a signal.”

NASA said mission controllers are β€œinvestigating the anomaly to address the situation. More information will be shared once it becomes available.”

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Β© NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

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The Moon Was an Inside Job

New research suggests that Theia, the object whose collision with Earth is theorized to have caused the formation of the moon, came from closer to the sun.

Β© Mark A. Garlick/MPS

Artist’s impression of the collision between the early Earth and Theia, with the sun in the far distance, roughly 100 million years after the formation of the solar system.
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