#01 SPACE

+ On October 20th NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully flew to within a few meters of the asteroid Bennu, touched the surface and grabbed some rocks with a special sample collection tool, and promptly flew away. And it all worked! But perhaps too well. Engineers were concerned that OSIRIS-REx wouldn't collect much sample since the asteroid was rockier than expected, but it actually collected too much. This left the sample container propped open and caused precious sample to leak out into space. After realizing the problem, operators promptly stowed the container into a sample return capsule which will deliver the precious material back to Earth in 2023. This is only the 3rd time sample has been collected from an asteroid and the first time for NASA.

+ The Moon may harbor more water than previously thought. It's been known for some time that permanently shadowed craters near the moon's south pole harbor water ice, but this is the first discovery of water on sunlit areas of the moon. The downside is that it's unclear if the water is in a proper state or high enough quantity for astronauts to make us of.

+ Over the last couple of months, we've been following the story of a persistent and hard to find air leak on the International Space Station. The crew has finally located the source of the leak using what must have been an immensely complicated process of watching tea leaves float around the cabin. The hole was described as a "scratch" by one of the cosmonauts, and I haven't seen any info on what caused it. The crew is now working to finally patch the hole.

#02 SEA

+ The exploration vessel Nautilus is currently exploring a region known as the Southern California Borderlands, a geologic region deep under the sea categorized by fault lines and tectonic plates. The goal is to classic exploration mantra: figure out what's there. "Despite its proximity to California’s major population centers, much of the Southern California Borderland remains unexplored and some is even unmapped. Thus, the goals of this study are to explore, document, and discover." Th expedition will last until Nov 6th, you can watch live video feeds from the ship's remotely operated submarine.

+ As if to prove we don't know that much about our own oceans, scientists have discovered a 1,600 foot tall coral reef structure near Australia's Great Barrer Reef, the first such discovery in over a century. The find was made by the Schmidt Ocean Institute's Research Vessel Falkor on a year-long campaign to study the northern depths of the Great Barrier Reef. 

+ Although the pandemic has precluded quite a few expeditions this year, scientists tend to be an opportunistic bunch. The silence of limited human activities is helping to decode the language of a rare type of dolphin. 

+ The National Science Foundation approved a $53 million grant to build a new ocean monitoring system consisting of 500 floats deployed around the world. Once built, the network will probe ocean depths to over 6,000 ft and stream data directly to researchers.

#03 CONSERVATION

+ Egypt is building a forest in the desert using treated wastewater to irrigate the parched region. This is part of a larger project across Africa which, if successful, will see forest extend over 247 million acres of land.

+ It is easy to forget that planting more trees is not always the right answer. 99% Invisible with a great podcast on the expansive bogs of Scotland and why government efforts to forest the region in the 1980s backfired.

#04 HALLOWEEN

+ If you didn't get your normal sugar high last night, here are a couple of stories that might help set the mood. Learn about five reasons to love bats or explore galactic horrors with a new set of movie posters put out by NASA.

#05 A GOOD BOOK

+ Plenty of astronauts have written memoirs, but none are quite like Terry Verts's How to Astronaut: An insiders Guide to Leaving Planet Earth. Verts was a fighter pilot, flew the space shuttle, and commanded the Internation Space Station. His book consists of short, often humorous, and sometimes serious, commentary of his experiences in space. He covers all sorts of interesting topics like the quality of food in space, flying the shuttle, dealing with robots, and what to do when an emergency happens. This was a fun read and would be perfect for anyone wanting to learn about the basics of spaceflight in a very approachable and down-to-earth style (pun intended!).

"How to Astronaut is a book about adventure. About exploration. About the unknown. It's about the best things that make us human and a few things that make us wish we weren't." 

That's all for this week! You can respond to this email to tell me about anything you liked or didn't like, tell me about a project you're working on, or suggest a story. You might also forward this email to a friend so they can subscribe too!

- Evan Hilgemann

This newsletter was produced as a private venture and not in the author's capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology or of Griffith Observatory. Any views and opinions expressed herein or on exploreandobserve.com are his own and not those of his employers.

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