JWST has helped researchers understand three Kuiper Belt Objects. The powerful space telescope set its sights on the outermost Solar System, collecting spectral data from Sedna, Gonggong, and Quaoar, three small bodies in the Kuiper Belt. JWST’s observations found ices and complex organics on their surfaces, expanding our understanding of this kind of distant object. Pictured: An artist’s impression of Sedna. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
NASA is considering budget cuts for the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes. The director of NASA’s astrophysics division said this week that they may have to reduce the operating budgets of the two long-standing missions because of cuts to the overall astrophysics budget. The agency has not said what these cuts would mean for the missions but has emphasized that both are still performing well and are likely to continue to generate world-class science throughout the next half-decade.
Nature’s tiniest flowering plants might be important to the future of space travel. New research from Mahidol University in Thailand has found that watermeal, a tiny flowering plant that grows floating on water, may be an ideal source of both oxygen and protein for future human spaceflight. It is one of few plants that is typically consumed in its entirety, as it has no roots, stems, or leaves, making it an efficient crop.
Psyche has launched. The spacecraft successfully took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 13, beginning its six-year journey to the metallic asteroid, also named Psyche. Asteroid Psyche may be the exposed core of a planetesimal that had its outer layers stripped off by collisions. The mission will help determine whether this is indeed a rare example of a planetary building block used in the formation of planets and other worlds.