Space Highlights - November 2, 2016

November 2, 2016

A Japanese H-IIA rocket successfully launched the Himawari 9 weather satellite into orbit.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/11/japanese-h-iia-rocket-himawari-9-launch/


India's ISRO is aiming to set a world record with the launch of 83 satellites on a single rocket in 2017.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/ISROs_World_record_bid_Launching_83_satellites_on_single_rocket_999.html


China plans to introduce its new Long March 5 satellite booster later this week, with the launch of the Shijian 17 experimental satellite.
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/china-national-space-administration/china-debut-powerful-next-generation-long-march-5-launcher-thursday/


Three crew members of the International Space Station - one Russian, one American and one Japanese - returned safely to earth aboard a Soyuz capsule.
https://www.inverse.com/article/22954-space-station-trio-returns-to-earth


NASA has released photos from the Cassini spacecraft, depicting Saturn's hexagonal cloud pattern at its north pole.
http://www.space.com/34573-saturn-rings-hexagon-vortex-cassini-photo.html


NASA's Curiosity rover has captured images of a small metallic meteorite on the surface of Mars.  The fact that the meteorite is intact, and did not produce a crater, gives evidence that it arrived at a time when Mars' atmosphere was thicker and could slow such a meteorite down before impact.
http://www.sciencealert.com/curiosity-has-spotted-a-weird-metallic-meteorite-on-mars


A computer glitch has been identified as the most likely cause for the crash of the European Space Agency's Schiaparelli lander after it entered Mars' atmosphere.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/26/mars-probe-crash-computer-glitch-exomars-schiaparelli-lander


The New Horizon spacecraft has finally uploaded the last of the data that was collected during its flyby of Pluto last year.
http://newatlas.com/nasa-new-horizons-pluto-data/46192/


Scientists believe that they have detected water on the surface of 16 Psyche, a large metallic asteroid that was believed to have been devoid of water up until now.  It is still unclear as to whether the water was native to the asteroid when it was formed or - as many believe - was deposited by subsequent impacts with other asteroids or comets.
https://www.inverse.com/article/22920-scientists-find-water-on-psyche


Astronomers have succeeded in capturing a visual light image of an exoplanet orbiting a star 1200 light years away.  Direct images of exoplanets are extremely difficult to obtain, due to the glare of the parent star.  The exoplanet in question, CVSO 30c is a large gas giant, orbiting the star CVSO 30 at a substantial distance.  The orbital period of CSVO 30c is estimated at some 27,000 years.
http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/picture-giant-exoplanet-04321.html