NASA has been showing-off its latest spacecraft to the media. “Psyche,” still in the clean room of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, is about to be taken to Florida for its launch this August on an exciting mission to explore a mysterious—and possibly the most valuable—asteroid of the same name.
It target is officially called “16 Psyche” because it was the 16th asteroid ever discovered back in 1852. It’s also the brightest and most reflective asteroid of all, which leads scientists to suspect that it may be made largely of metal.
Scientists know of meteorites that are mostly metal, but 16 Psyche could be unique in that it might be an asteroid that is totally made of iron and nickel.
Its strange composition could be because Psyche is actually the leftover core of a “dead” planet that never made it—a “protoplanet.”
If it is then it will be considered to be one of the building blocks of the rocky planets in the Solar System. 16 Psyche could therefore provide a unique opportunity to study how planets like our own Earth formed, say scientists.
16 Psyche is about 140 miles/226 kilometers wide and orbits the Sun from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It’s about 230 million miles/370 million kilometers from Earth.
The van-size spacecraft shown-off to reporters this week will launch from the Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during August 2022, fly by Mars for a gravity assist in May 2023 and, in early 2026, finally go into orbit around 16 Psyche.
The Psyche spacecraft will then orbit 16 Psyche for 21 months and investigate its composition.
“Welcoming reporters into the clean room gives the public a glimpse of the years of hard work that have gone into this mission,” said Brian Bone, Psyche’s assembly, test, and launch operations manager at JPL. “Thanks to the Psyche team’s determination and skill, we’re in the final stretch of readying the spacecraft to head out to our launch site in Florida.”
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
