Senate expenses climbed to $7.2 million in 2023, up nearly 30%
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
The United Arab Emirates unveiled plans Monday to send a spaceship to explore the solar system's main asteroid belt, the latest space project by the oil-rich nation after it launched the successful Hope spacecraft to Mars in 2020.
Dubbed the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt, the project aims to develop a spacecraft in the coming years and then launch it in 2028 to study various asteroids.
"This mission is a follow up and a follow on the Mars mission, where it was the first mission to Mars from the region," said Mohsen Al Awadhi, program director of the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt. "We're creating the same thing with this mission. That is, the first mission ever to explore these seven asteroids in specific and the first of its kind when it's looked at from the grand tour aspect."
The UAE became the first Arab country and the second country ever to successfully enter Mars' orbit on its first try when its Hope probe reached the red planet in February 2021. The craft's goals include providing the first complete picture of the Martian atmosphere and its layers and helping answer key questions about the planet's climate and composition.
If successful, the newly announced spacecraft will soar at speeds reaching 33,000 kilometres per hour on a seven-year journey to explore six asteroids. It will culminate in the deployment of a landing craft onto a seventh, rare "red" asteroid that scientists say may hold insight into the building blocks of life on Earth.
Organic compounds like water are crucial constituents of life and have been found on some asteroids, potentially delivered through collisions with other organic-rich bodies or via the creation of complex organic molecules in space. Investigating the origins of these compounds, along with the possible presence of water on red asteroids, could shed light on the origin of Earth's water, thereby offering valuable insights into the genesis of life on our planet.
The endeavour is a significant milestone for the burgeoning UAE Space Agency, just established in 2014, as it follows up on its success in sending the Amal, or "Hope," probe to Mars. The new journey would span a distance over ten times greater than the Mars mission.
The explorer is named MBR after Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who also serves as the vice president and prime minister of the hereditarily ruled UAE. It will first make its way toward Venus where the planet's gravitational pull will slingshot it back past the Earth and then Mars.
The craft will eventually reach the asteroid belt, flying as close as 150 kilometres to the celestial boulders and covering a total distance of 5 billion kilometres.
In October 2034, the craft is expected to make its final thrust to the seventh and last asteroid, named Justitia, before deploying a lander over a year later. Justitia, believed to be one of only two known red asteroids, is thought to potentially have a surface laden with organic substances and to originate from the region where the giant planets formed, or even beyond.
"It's one of the two reddest objects in the asteroid belt, and scientists don't really understand why it's so red," said Hoor AlMaazmi, a space science researcher at the UAE space agency. "There are theories about it being originally from the Kuiper Belt and where there's much more red objects there. So that's one thing that we can study because it has the potential for it to be water rich as well."
The MBR Explorer will deploy a landing craft to study the surface of Justitia that is fully developed by UAE private start-up companies. It may lay the ground for possible future resource extraction from asteroids to eventually support extended human missions in space -- and maybe even the UAE's ambitious goal of building a colony on Mars by 2117.
"We have identified different key areas that we want startups in the private sector to be part of, and we will engage with them through that. And we understand that the knowledge we have in the UAE is you know still being built. We will provide these startups with the knowledge they need," said Al Awadhi.
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
Police say a baby and a pedestrian suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a vehicle struck a baby stroller and dragged it for two blocks before stopping in Squamish, B.C.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
A group of demonstrators were kicked out of the legislature after a second NDP motion calling for unanimous consent to reverse a ban on the keffiyeh failed to pass.
The RCMP says it has uncovered a plot by two men in Montreal to sell Chinese drones and military equipment to Libya illegally.
The U.S. Justice Department announced a US$138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.
The Vancouver Canucks will be without all-star goalie Thatcher Demko when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
A 35-year-old man wanted in connection with the murder of Toronto resident 29-year-old Sharmar Powell-Flowers nine months ago has topped the list of the BOLO program’s 25 most wanted fugitives across Canada, police announced Tuesday.
The Canadian Medical Association is asking the federal government to reconsider its proposed changes to capital gains taxation, arguing it will affect doctors' retirement savings.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.