Universe Today
• Evan Gough
NASA has confirmed the UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX), setting its lifecycle cost at $590 million and committing to launch by January 2031. The telescope is described as roughly 100 times more powerful than GALEX, whose mission ended in 2013, and is intended to expand ultraviolet observations of the universe.
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NASA has confirmed the UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX), setting its lifecycle cost at $590 million and committing to launch by January 2031. The telescope is described as roughly 100 times more powerful than GALEX, whose mission ended in 2013, and is intended to expand ultraviolet observations of the universe.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has measured ultrafine dust particles on materials designed to represent spacesuit surfaces, sharpening concerns about crew exposure during future Mars missions. Separately, the rover collected a sample from a rock dubbed Singita that may be more than 3.9 billion years old.
Radiation measurements aboard the uncrewed Orion spacecraft during NASA’s Artemis I mission found that cosmic radiation near the Moon exceeds levels in Earth orbit, though by less than scientists might have anticipated. The data add to the evidence needed to assess radiation exposure on future crewed lunar missions.
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Researchers using Chile’s Vera C. Rubin Observatory identified 2026 ED138, a distant object beyond Pluto that may qualify as the solar system’s sixth known dwarf planet. The discovery came before the observatory’s decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time begins, highlighting its ability to detect faint objects in crowded regions of the sky.
NASA’s ultraviolet space telescope mission has cleared a major review, advancing a project that still faces uncertainty over its launch and communications. The available report does not identify the mission or specify the issues behind those uncertainties.
NASA’s systems engineering team has detailed the mission architecture for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a planned effort aimed at finding Earth-like worlds beyond the solar system. The work comes as exoplanet research has advanced substantially since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1995.
The object, provisionally designated 2026 ED138, is among the first discoveries reported by Chile’s Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Its status as a dwarf planet remains uncertain, but the detection points to the observatory’s emerging role in identifying and studying distant objects in the solar system.
Four volunteers who spent more than a year living and working in a simulated Mars mission are due to leave their habitat on Saturday, Oct. Separately, analog astronaut Michaela Musilova led low-visibility underwater “spacewalks” to test astronaut safety and communications protocols—using terrestrial simulations to examine challenges crews may face during space missions.
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