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  SpaceX lands rocket; CO2 digs Mars gullies?Dec 22, 2015 11:22 PM PST | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Space news from the BBC!
 
SpaceX rocket in historic upright landing - SpaceX just launched a rocket booster that carried a payload into orbit, then came back to Earth and made a controlled pad landing! This is a big deal for making space flight more affordable, because it means the boosters can be reused or recycled, instead of having to make a new one from scratch for each rocket launch. Quite a coup for a private aerospace company, especially considering that SpaceX has recently had to endure some costly crashes. Way to go, SpaceX! Their rocket has little landing legs that fold out to help it steady itself upon landing, but it's still strange seeing this big tall, skinny rocket thing coming down and landing daintily upright (in the video in the article).
 
Trapped CO2 gas may form Martian gullies - Scientists have a new theory to explain how gullies can form on Mars in the absence of liquid water: it could be that gaseous CO2 bubbles up and gets trapped beneath a surface layer of frozen CO2 (aka "dry ice"), at which point the building pressure of the gas pushes the Martian soil beneath it downhill, digging gullies that otherwise look like the type of thing that would need flowing water to dig it out here on Earth. So far this is just a theory, mind you.
 
 
 
 
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