Mission | Common News Update

Aug162017 by adminNo Comments

Tom Cruise injury halts Mission: Impossible 6 filming

The film studio behind the Mission: Impossible series has confirmed that production of its latest instalment has been halted after actor Tom Cruise broke his ankle during a stunt.But Paramount Pictures insisted that Mission: Impossible 6 remained on schedule to open in July next year.Cruise was hurt while filming a jump between two high-rise buildings in London at the weekend.A video shows him crashing into a wall. He was later seen limping off the set.Cruise, 55, is well known for doing his own stunts.In a statement, Paramount said: "During production on the latest Mission: Impossible film, Tom Cruise broke his ankle while performing a stunt. "Production will go on hiatus while Tom makes a full recovery, and the film remains on schedule to open July 27, 2018. "Tom wants to thank you all f...

Jul282017 by adminNo Comments

On a mission to Mars (with Hawaii stopover)

Science

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Researchers living near the active Hawaiian Volcano Mauna Loa are simulating what it's like to "live" on Mars. BBC News - Science & Environment

Jul162017 by adminNo Comments

A mission to the Pacific plastic patch

Science

A mariner who has spent years travelling "hundreds of thousands of nautical miles" to measure the impact of plastic waste in the ocean has estimated that a "raft" of plastic debris spanning more than 965,000 square miles (2.5m sq km) is concentrated in a region of the South Pacific. Capt Charles Moore has just returned from a sampling expedition around Easter Island and Robinson Crusoe Island. He was part of the team which discovered the first ocean "garbage patch" in the North Pacific gyre in 1997 and has now turned his attention to the South Pacific.Although plastic is known to occur in the Southern Hemisphere gyres, very few scientists have visited the region to collect samples.Oceanographer Dr Erik van Sebille, from Utrecht University, says the work of Capt Moore and his colleagues wi...

Jul92017 by adminNo Comments

BepiColombo: Joint Mercury mission ready for 'pizza oven'

Science

Media playback is unsupported on your deviceThe two satellites that make up the BepiColombo mission to Mercury were presented to the media on Thursday. This joint European-Japanese venture has been in development for nearly two decades, but should finally get to the launch pad in 15 months' time.The two spacecraft will travel together to the baking world but separate on arrival to conduct their own studies.Thursday's event in the Netherlands was the last chance for journalists to view the so-called "flight stack".This is the edifice that goes on top of the rocket and comprises Europe's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and Japan's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), as well as the propulsion module to control their path towards the world that circles closest to the Sun.As a single item, th...

Jul42017 by adminNo Comments

Organic compounds found by Saturn moon mission

Technology

Scientists have urged caution after finding organic compounds around Saturn's moon Enceladus.Enceladus was discovered by the British astronomer William Herschel in 1789 using what was then the largest telescope in the world, measuring 1.2m across.Almost 230 years later, the Cassini spacecraft conducted another fly-past of its southern pole, travelling through one of the mysterious cryovolcanic plumes which had been discovered to be erupting from the moon.Cassini sampled the water-rich plumes, suspected to originate from a vast liquid ocean beneath the surface of Enceladus, and discovered organic compounds - molecules which contain carbon and are essential to all known life.These compounds, including the molecule methanol, have now been detected in a much more massive quantity than previous...