Speaking of Science: Itsy-bitsy space cameras

Never before has such an itsy-bitsy satellite traveled so far from its home planet. And never before have scientists seen space through its wide-angle camera eyes.This image of...

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One of NASA's twin MarCO spacecraft captured this image of Mars, the first time a CubeSat — a kind of low-cost, briefcase-size spacecraft — has taken a photograph from beyond Earth. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) Never before has such an itsy-bitsy satellite traveled so far from its home planet. And never before have scientists seen space through its wide-angle camera eyes. This image of Mars was captured Oct. 3 by MarCO-B, one of the twin tiny spacecraft sent to the Red Planet alongside NASA's InSight mission. It is a "CubeSat" — a miniature satellite made at low cost from off-the-shelf materials in an effort to democratize space research. MarCO-B (which engineers nicknamed WALL-E, for the Pixar character) and its twin MarCO-A (called EVE) are no bigger than briefcases and weigh less than 40 pounds. If all goes according to plan, the tiny satellites should arrive in orbit to photograph the InSight lander as it makes its descent to the Martian surface Nov. 26. The interchangeable boxes that constitute each satellite were reportedly inspired by the four-inch plastic cubes used to display Beanie Babies. Usually, CubeSats are launched into low Earth orbit by student researchers, commercial groups and nations with small space programs. They've been equipped with technology from every conceivable discipline for a wide range of scientific research: cameras for environmental sensing, particle detectors for space weather protection, packets of microbes to help researchers understand how life might survive far from Earth. This spring, MarCOs A and B became the first CubeSats to leave their home planet, rocketing through the void of space at a pace of roughly 1 million miles a day. Earlier this month, the Mars Cube One team, which operates the satellites, programmed MarCO-B to rotate in space and take several test images of its distant, dusty target. Captured from 8 million miles away, Mars is just a pale red dot, but mission manager Cody Colley said in a statement that "finally seeing the planet is definitely a big win for the team." — Sarah Kaplan Self-driving cars will have to decide who should live and who should die. Here's who humans would kill. A massive experiment asked millions of people how self-driving cars should swerve -- or not -- in life-threatening moral dilemmas. By Carolyn Y. Johnson  •  Read more »   ADVERTISEMENT There's a perfectly rectangular iceberg floating in Antarctica. Here's how it got that way. An iceberg the size of a college campus broke off a large ice shelf fed by several glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula. By Deanna Paul  •  Read more »   A 'headless chicken monster' sighting shows just how little we know about the ocean off Antarctica Researchers filmed Enypniastes eximia, also described as the "headless chicken monster," in the Southern Ocean. By Cleve Wootson  •  Read more »   The secret of super-strong webs is traced to tiny structures in spider glands The authors of a new study hope their discovery could improve artificial spider silk. By Ben Guarino  •  Read more »   ADVERTISEMENT As NASA's prized telescopes falter, astronomers fear losing their eyes in space Two of NASA's aging "great observatories" have experienced technical problems in the past month, and astronomers are starting to worry about what happens when they fail. By Sarah Kaplan  •  Read more »   Oldest fossils or just rocks? Scientists at odds over 3.7 billion-year-old structures. One team said the structures were like ice cream cones. Another sees a Toblerone bar. By Joel Achenbach  •  Read more »   How do you make a predatory dinosaur relatable? Show it as a parent. Museums used to depict dinosaurs as "extinct monsters." But with a new fossil hall and more advanced science, the National Museum of Natural History hopes reveal their softer side. By Sarah Kaplan  •  Read more »   Recommended for you     Get The Intersect newsletter The latest in digital culture, from viral crazes to exploding memes, delivered every Friday. Sign Up  »

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