Новости за 01.01.2016

Planned in the 1960s but never realized, the Gemini-based manned spy satellite was finally declassified in 2015.

Fifty grams of plutonium-238 — the stuff that powers many deep-space missions, such as the New Horizons mission to Pluto — was produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. It's the first batch made in the United States since 1988.

In a decidedly wintry-looking scene, frost-filled fractures fills a crater near the north pole of Mars -- as observed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra and British spaceflyer Tim Peake have beamed home a special New Year's video message for the 7.3 billion people confined to Earth's surface.

The word from Russia is that the country wants to send monkeys to the Red Planet by 2017. But waving the red flag on such a plan: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).