European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: NASA

A conceptual illustration shows a lunar robot rover.
Image credit: NASA.

NASA is accepting applications from teams of U.S. and international undergraduate and graduate students for the third annual Lunabotics Mining Competition. The event will be at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida May 21-26, 2012.

Participants in the competition will design and build a remote controlled or autonomous robot, which could be used for future exploration on the moon. During the competition, the teams' designs, known as lunabots, will go head-to-head to determine which one can excavate and deposit the most simulated lunar dirt within 10 minutes.

Students must submit applications, including a systems engineering paper and an educational outreach project, by Nov. 30. Registration is limited to one team for each university campus and 10 teams per country.

The competition is designed to engage and retain students in the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, disciplines critical to NASA's missions.

For information about the competition and to apply online, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lunabotics

Source: ESA Videos

Images taken by the optical and radar instruments on board ESA's Envisat Satellite orbiting 800 km above the Earth are set to relaxing music. Originally produced for Lufthansa inflight entertainment (released December 2010). (view video source)

Source: NSBRI

A unique science project designed to sow the excitement of scientific discovery in students is sprouting this week aboard the International Space Station. The Plants in Space project will allow students and teachers to examine root growth in microgravity and compare the results with those from plants used in their own ground-based experiments.

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) is funding the project. It began Tuesday, Sept. 20, when space station astronauts planted Brassica rapa seeds during the first of four scheduled five-day trials. The project's primary scientific goal is to investigate the influence of light on root orientation. (learn more)

Source: NASA

The International Space Station with ATV-2 and Endeavour.
Image credits: ESA/NASA.

NASA is releasing the initial version of a Global Exploration Roadmap (GER) developed by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group. This roadmap is the culmination of work by 12 space agencies, including NASA,  during the past year to advance coordinated space exploration.

The GER begins with the International Space Station and expands human presence throughout the solar system,  leading ultimately to crewed missions to explore the surface of Mars.

The roadmap identifies two potential pathways: "Asteroid Next" and "Moon Next." Each pathway represents a mission scenario that covers a 25-year period with a logical sequence of robotic and human missions. Both pathways were deemed practical approaches to address common high-level exploration goals developed by the participating agencies, recognizing that individual preferences among them may vary. (read source)