NASA is foregoing the opportunity to launch its Europa Clipper mission this week. It was supposed to launch on October 10 on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket but bad weather has caused a change of plans.

The agency cited hurricane conditions that are building up near the launch site at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

📢Launch Update!

.@NASA and @SpaceX are standing down from the Oct. 10, launch attempt of the agency’s @EuropaClipper mission due to anticipated hurricane conditions in the area.

Once the storm passes, recovery teams will assess the safety of the spaceport and the launch… pic.twitter.com/wl3VUyrmZv
— NASA’s Launch Services Program (@NASA_LSP) October 6, 2024

Expecting high winds and heavy rain, the mission team has secured the Europa Clipper in a SpaceX facility at the Kennedy Space Center nearby. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the Hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico will intensify by midweek when it hits Florida’s east coast. The launch site is on the west coast.

10pm CDT Oct 6th Key Messages for #Hurricane #Milton:

Forecast to become a major hurricane on Monday. Hurricane and Storm Surge watches likely to go up early Monday for portions of W coast Florida Peninsula.

Latest: https://t.co/LQEVorqXZH pic.twitter.com/KN9YaEeosO
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) October 7, 2024

“While it is too soon to specify the exact magnitude and location of the greatest impacts, there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and damaging winds for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning early Wednesday,” the NHC stated.

“The safety of launch team personnel is our highest priority, and all precautions will be taken to protect the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” Tim Dunn, senior launch director at NASA’s Launch Services Program, said in a statement.

ALSO SEE: NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Is Flying To Jupiter’s Moon Next Month; Facts You Must Know

The new launch date for the mission is yet to be announced but NASA says that opportunities are available until November 6.

“Once we have the ‘all-clear’ followed by facility assessment and any recovery actions, we will determine the next launch opportunity for this NASA flagship mission,” Dunn said.

Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever made for an exploration mission. Equipped with nine instruments, the probe will measure more than 100 feet when it fully unfurls its solar panels.

The mission has an objective to investigate Jupiter’s moon Europa, which scientists believe has a vast ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Using its instruments, Clipper will study Europa’s composition and geology, its icy surface and the chemistry of the suspected ocean to determine if there are conditions that could support life.

ALSO SEE: NASA’s Flying To An Ocean World. Its Spacecraft Is Giant.

(Image: NASA)

Blue Origin is introducing its brand new space capsule today. The New Shepard spacecraft, which was originally scheduled to launch on the NS-27 mission at 6:30 pm IST from West Texas, will now lift off at 9:40 pm. This is the second human-rated vehicle which is being tested to expand the company’s flight capacity in order to “meet growing customer demand.”

You can watch the launch live on BlueOrigin.com. The webcast will begin 15 minutes before liftoff.

#NS27 is targeting liftoff tomorrow. The launch window for this uncrewed verification flight opens at 8:00 AM CDT / 13:00 UTC. Webcast begins at 7:45 AM CDT on https://t.co/7Y4TherXAZ. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/tFiyWo2na7
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 6, 2024

The new capsule named RSS Kármán Line, the company said, is equipped with advanced technologies that will improve its performance, reusability and accommodations for payloads on the booster.

ALSO SEE: Indian Civilians Can Visit Space Almost Free Of Cost Thanks To Blue Origin; Here’s How

Similar to its predecessor, 99 percent of the RSS Kármán Line’s components including the booster, capsule, engine, landing gear, and parachutes are reusable.

The vehicle will be tested by flying it to the Kármán Line, the internationally recognised boundary of space 100 km above Earth. This is an uncrewed flight meaning there are no humans onboard. Instead, the capsule will be carrying 12 payloads – five on the booster and seven inside the crew capsule.

The payloads include new navigation systems developed for New Shepard and Blue Origin’s upcoming rocket New Glenn; two different LIDAR sensors for the Lunar Permanence program – a collaboration between NASA and Blue Origin and ultra-wideband proximity operations sensors flying as part of a NASA TechFlights grant with Blue Origin’s Space Systems Development group.

ALSO SEE: Jeff Bezos-Owned Blue Origin Fires Rocket That Will Rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX; Watch

(Image: Blue Origin)

Scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun have been jointly awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine for “the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.”

RNA or Ribonucleic Acid plays a key role in cell function. There is a messenger RNA or mRNA that directs the cells to make proteins using natural machinery.

BREAKING NEWS
The 2024 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. pic.twitter.com/rg3iuN6pgY
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 7, 2024

The microRNA is a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation. Gene regulation is basically the process by which cells control the expression of genes. It helps them decide which genes to turn on or off, and to what extent. This allows the cells to adapt to different environment, develop and grow and maintain cellular balance among other key functions.

Failure in gene regulation can cause mutations which can cause diseases and unregulated cell growth that can lead to cancer and even diabetes. Cells and tissues have been found to develop abnormally without microRNAs.

The 2024 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity. Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA), via a process called transcription, and then on to the cellular machinery… pic.twitter.com/dZ61x0clw9
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 7, 2024

“Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans,” a release from the Nobel committee said.

The finding also revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation and that microRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.

The discovery of the microRNA by Ambros and Ravkun was made in 1993 after years of research that started in the 1980s on a 1mm long roundworm. Thanks to their findings, scientists now know that gene regulation by microRNA has enabled the evolution of increasingly complex organisms and its abnormal regulation can cause many diseases. Besides, mutations in genes coding for microRNAs have caused congenital hearing loss, eye and skeletal disorders in humans.

ALSO SEE: Scientists Who Discovered How Our Bodies Feel Hugs And Heat Win Nobel Prize

More about the Nobel Prize winners

Victor Ambros is Silverman Professor of Natural Science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School after serving as a Professor at Dartmouth Medical School from 1992-2007. After receiving his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge in 1979, he also did postdoctoral research from 1979-1985 at the institution. He later became a Principal Investigator at Harvard University, Cambridge.

Say good morning to our new medicine laureate 🎉

Gary Ruvkun was woken up in the early hours to the news he had been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Stay tuned for our interview with him, coming soon. pic.twitter.com/z0slb0HbtP
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 7, 2024

Gary Ruvkun is a Professor of Genetics at the Harvard Medical School. He has also worked as a Principal Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital. Ruvkun received his PhD from Harvard University in 1982 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge from 1982-1985.

The two scientists will share the award and approximately $1 million that comes with the diploma.

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