Carnival of Space 259

The Carnival of Space 259 is up at Venus Transit

Meridiani Journal – The Spitzer space telescope has found a possible exoplanet which is smaller than Earth and may be covered in lava.

Nextbigfuture – a novel architecture is proposed that would allow for an unmanned interstellar rendezvous and return mission. The approach utilized for the Vacuum to Antimatter-Rocket Interstellar Explorer System (VARIES) would lead to system components and mission approaches that could be utilized for autonomous operation of other deep-space probes. Engineering solutions for such a mission will have a significant impact on future exploration and sample return missions for the outer planets. This paper introduces the general concept, with a mostly qualitative analysis. However, a full research program is introduced, and as this program progresses, more quantitative papers will be released.

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