Aboard the International Space Station in May 2012, Expedition 31 astronaut Don Pettit opened the shutters covering the cupola observation windows in time to watch the moon rise. The time-lapse scene was photographed from the airlock of the Station’s Russian segment. http://youtu.be/YcHUlVMKy5o
May 30, 2012
The last Soviet mission to the moon, Luna-24, returned to Earth with water-rich rocks from beneath the lunar surface. But the West ignored the result The possibility of water on the moon has excited scientists and science fiction fans for decades. If we ever decide to maintain a human presence on the moon, clear evidence… [Read more…]
May 21, 2012
by Jeff Hecht SPACE exploration may have a new direction. In the 1960s, humans did the exploring but since the last moon landing in 1972, NASA’s only explorers beyond low Earth orbit have been semi-autonomous robots. Now the agency is pondering a third approach, sending astronauts who would remain in orbit around alien worlds and… [Read more…]
May 11, 2012
In England it is known as the “Plough,” in Germany the “Great Cart,” and in Malaysia the “Seven Ploughs.” Since humanity first turned its eyes skyward, the seven northern hemisphere stars that compose the “Big Dipper” have been a welcome and familiar introduction to the heavens. “I can recall as a kid making an imaginary… [Read more…]
May 9, 2012
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed that movement in sand dune fields on the Red Planet occurs on a surprisingly large scale, about the same as in dune fields on Earth. This is unexpected because Mars has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth, is only about one percent as dense, and its high-speed winds are… [Read more…]
April 28, 2012
The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, launched Nov. 26, 2011, will deliver Curiosity to the surface of Mars on the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early on Aug. 6, Universal Time and EDT) to begin a two-year prime mission. Curiosity’s landing site is near the base of a mountain inside Gale Crater, near the Martian… [Read more…]
April 27, 2012
April 13, 2012
Getting a spacecraft to Mars is one thing; getting it safely to the ground is a whole other challenge! This 60-second video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains three ways to land on the surface of the Red Planet http://youtu.be/8-X8acD_r38
April 13, 2012
On April 5, 2010, the sun spewed a two million-mile-per-hour stream of charged particles toward the invisible magnetic fields surrounding Earth, known as the magnetosphere. As the particles interacted with the magnetic fields, the incoming stream of energy caused stormy conditions near Earth. Some scientists believe that it was this solar storm that interfered with… [Read more…]
April 12, 2012
Researchers from universities in Los Angeles, California, Tempe, Arizona and Siena, Italy have published a paper in the International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences (IJASS) citing the results of their work with data obtained by NASA’s Viking mission. The twin Viking 1 and 2 landers, which launched in August and September of 1975, successfully… [Read more…]
April 9, 2012
NASA’s 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) with space shuttle Discovery mounted atop will fly approximately 1,500 feet above various parts of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area on Tuesday, April 17. The flight, in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration, is scheduled to occur between 10 and 11 a.m. EDT. NASA Television and the agency’s web… [Read more…]
April 2, 2012
ISS030-E-177670 (28 March 2012) — One of the Expedition 30 crew members photographed this nighttime scene while the International Space Station was flying at an altitude approximately 240 miles over the eastern North Atlantic. The view looks northeastward. Center point coordinates are 46.8 degrees north latitude and 14.3 degrees west longitude. The night lights of… [Read more…]
April 2, 2012
City lights of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are featured in this image taken by the Expedition 30 crew aboard the International Space Station. The City of Dubai–the largest metropolitan area within the emirate of Dubai–is a favorite subject of astronaut photography largely due to the unique artificial archipelagos situated directly offshore in the Persian Gulf,… [Read more…]
March 29, 2012
The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a spectacular rotation of material in a solar prominence, which created a massive tornado-like feature on the Sun, five times bigger than the Earth. “This is perhaps the first time that such a huge solar tornado is filmed by an imager,” said Dr. Xing Li of Aberystwyth University, presenting his… [Read more…]
March 28, 2012
Read more: physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/49135 Global Positioning System Test of the Local Position Invariance of Planck’s Constant J. Kentosh and M. Mohageg Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 110801 (2012) Published March 15, 2012 Pinpointing Planck’s Constant with GPS GPS is helping drivers find their way and parents track their kids and pets. But now a pair of researchers—reporting in Physical Review Letters—has used… [Read more…]
March 25, 2012
Juan Carlos Garcia-Escartin, Pedro Chamorro-Posada Advanced civilizations capable of interstellar travel, if they exist, are likely to have advanced propulsion methods. Spaceships moving at high speeds would leave a particular signature which could be detected from Earth. We propose a search based on the properties of light reflecting from objects travelling at relativistic speeds. Based… [Read more…]
March 24, 2012
http://youtu.be/t2Biv2YAE6Y Earth’s atmosphere lights up at infrared wavelengths during the solar storms of March 8-10, 2012. This ScienceCast video explains the physics of this phenomenon. A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough… [Read more…]
March 22, 2012
Living Organisms (SESLO) experiment, executed by one of the two 10 cm cube-format payloads aboard the 5.5 kg Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses (O/OREOS) free-flying nanosatellite. The O/OREOS spacecraft was launched successfully to a 72° inclination, 650 km Earth orbit on 19 November 2010. This satellite provides access to the radiation environment of space in relatively weak regions… [Read more…]
March 21, 2012
100 Years of Possibility: Celebrating the Centennial Birthday of Dr. Wernher von Braun “I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.” – Wernher von Braun March 23 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Wernher von Braun, a father of modern rocketry, an early champion of human space exploration… [Read more…]
March 19, 2012
Space scientists from the University of New Hampshire and multi-institutional colleagues report they have quantified levels of radiation on the moon’s surface from galactic cosmic ray (GCR) bombardment that over time causes chemical changes in water ice and can create complex carbon chains similar to those that help form the foundations of biological structures. In… [Read more…]
March 17, 2012
Image of Ireland from Aqua satellite It is easy to see from this true-color image why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle. Intense green vegetation, primarily grassland, covers most of the country except for the exposed rock on mountaintops. Ireland owes its greenness to moderate temperatures and moist air. The Atlantic Ocean, particularly the warm… [Read more…]
March 15, 2012
From the upcoming Special Edition Ascent: Commemorating Space Shuttle DVD/BluRay a movie from the point of view of the Solid Rocket Booster with sound mixing and enhancement done by the folks at Skywalker Sound. http://youtu.be/2aCOyOvOw5c
March 13, 2012
New movies of Jupiter are the first to catch an invisible wave shaking up one of the giant planet’s jet streams, an interaction that also takes place in Earth’s atmosphere and influences the weather. http://youtu.be/YHAPD4ACf7U
March 12, 2012
These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn’s second largest moon, Rhea, were taken on March 10, 2012, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This was a relatively distant flyby with a close-approach distance of 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers), well suited for global geologic mapping. During the flyby, Cassini captured these distinctive views of the moon’s cratered surface, creating… [Read more…]
February 29, 2012
Why do we explore? Simply put, it is part of who we are, and it is something we have done throughout our history. In NASA’s new video, “We Are the Explorers,” we take a look at that tradition of reaching for things just beyond our grasp and how it is helping us lay the foundation… [Read more…]
February 29, 2012
A website has been launched that aims to get the public involved in the search for extraterrestrial life. Announced at the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Los Angeles, the site will stream radio frequencies that are transmitted from the Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Allen Telescope Array. Participants will be asked to search… [Read more…]
February 24, 2012
Stamp Petition Gains Nearly 6,000 Signatures The dwarf planet Pluto may be at the edge of our solar system, but an effort on Earth is seeking to put the icy world in mailboxes across the country — in stamp form. An online petition backed by scientists with NASA’s New Horizons mission is pushing for new postage… [Read more…]
February 23, 2012
Un voyage au centre de la Terre Les trois satellites européens de la constellation Swarm, fabriqués par l’industriel franco-allemand, Astrium, seront lancés cet été depuis la base russe de Plesetsk par une fusée Rockot. Une fois déployés sur leur orbite définitive, à 530 kilomètres d’altitude pour l’un et à 460 kilomètres pour les deux autres, ces… [Read more…]
February 20, 2012
New images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon’s crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon’s age of more than 4.5 billion years.… [Read more…]
February 20, 2012
Universal Newsreel Fifty years ago, on February 20th, 1962 John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the earth. This is a 1962 Universal Newsreel about his historic flight. http://youtu.be/qY87RTXzA04 Read also: A Salute to John Glenn, 50 Years of American Manned Spaceflight
February 16, 2012
Craters appear well defined on icy Rhea in front of the hazy orb of the much larger moon Titan in this Cassini spacecraft view of these two Saturn moons. Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemispheres of Rhea and Titan. North on the moons is up and rotated 13 degrees to the left.… [Read more…]
February 15, 2012
Captured by Envisat’s MERIS instrument on 13 February, this image shows an unusual view of Italy: almost all of the country is covered with snow. Credits: ESA - badastronomy
February 10, 2012
… A Possibility A group of scientists at NASA is strongly considering the possibility of constructing what they refer to as a waypoint tended by humans on the far side of the Moon. This structure would serve as a relay and resupply base for space missions probing deeper within the solar system. Top NASA officials… [Read more…]
February 10, 2012
(updated 13/2/2012 – Vega First Launch) http://youtu.be/GF8aVCFJb2M Europe’s Vega rocket is finally set to make its maiden flight on Monday. The 30m tall vehicle, first conceived in the 1990s, will launch on what is termed a qualification flight from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. It will carry nine satellites into orbit but the object… [Read more…]
February 7, 2012
On Jan. 27, 2012, a large X-class flare erupted from an active region near the solar west limb. X-class flares are the most powerful of all solar events. Seen here is an image of the flare captured by the X-ray telescope on Hinode. This image shows an emission from plasma heated to greater than eight… [Read more…]
February 3, 2012
Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is en route to intercept a comet– and to make history. In 2014, Rosetta will enter orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenkoand land a probe on it, two firsts. Rosetta’s goal is to learn the primordial story a comet tells as it gloriously falls to pieces. Comets are primitive leftovers from our solar system’s… [Read more…]
February 3, 2012
In 2006, NASA dispatched an ambassador to the planetary frontier. The New Horizons spacecraft is now halfway between Earth and Pluto, on approach for a dramatic flight past the icy planet and its moons in July 2015. After 10 years and more than 3 billion miles, on a historic voyage that has already taken it… [Read more…]
February 2, 2012
Dione on a Diagonal Saturn and Dione appear askew in this Cassini spacecraft view, with the north poles rotated to the right, as if they were threaded along on the thin diagonal line of the planet’s rings. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across). North on Dione… [Read more…]
January 28, 2012
The biggest storm on the sun in years erupted on January 22 with a huge solar flare, an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection, or CME, and a burst of fast moving, highly energetic protons that, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, caused the strongest solar radiation storm since September 2005. Also, Global Temperatures remain warm,… [Read more…]
January 26, 2012
Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions of years, according to the first published models of Vesta’s average global temperatures and illumination by the sun. “Near the… [Read more…]
January 26, 2012
On January 27, 1967, Apollo 1′s crew–Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee–was killed when a fire erupted in their capsule during testing. Apollo 1 was originally designated AS-204 but following the fire, the astronauts’ widows requested that the mission be remembered as Apollo 1 and following missions would be… [Read more…]
January 25, 2012
(False Color) This mosaic of images taken in mid-January 2012 shows the windswept vista northward (left) to northeastward (right) from the location where NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is spending its fifth Martian winter, an outcrop informally named “Greeley Haven.” Opportunity’s Panoramic Camera (Pancam) took the component images as part of full-circle view being assembled… [Read more…]
January 24, 2012
The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), or Orion, being assembled and tested at Lockheed Martin’s Vertical Testing Facility in Colorado. Drawing from more than 50 years of spaceflight research and development, Orion is designed to meet the evolving needs of our nation’s space program for decades to come. As the flagship of our nation’s next-generation space… [Read more…]
January 18, 2012
In order to reduce power consumption, mission managers have turned off a heater on part of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, dropping the temperature of its ultraviolet spectrometer instrument more than 23 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit). It is now operating at a temperature below minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature… [Read more…]
January 17, 2012
PASADENA, Calif. — Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the moon New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Mont. Their winning entry, “Ebb and Flow,” was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011. The names were submitted by fourth… [Read more…]
January 15, 2012
(update) Doomed Russian Phobos-Grunt Mars probe that’s been stuck in Earth orbit for two months has crashed down in the Pacific Ocean on late Sunday. “Phobos-Grunt fragments have crashed down in the Pacific Ocean,” Russia’s Defense Ministry official Alexei Zolotukhin told RIA Novosti, adding that the fragments fell in 1,250 kilometers to the west of… [Read more…]
January 12, 2012
London and New York are in the huge area where Russian spacecraft might land, but it is most likely to ditch in the sea A defunct Russian spacecraft is due to re-enter the atmosphere sometime after midday (GMT) on Sunday, say scientists who are watching its orbit closely. They cannot predict precisely where it will… [Read more…]
January 9, 2012
Today’s robotic space missions take careful steps to avoid carrying tiny bacterial life from Earth that could contaminate the surface of Mars or other planets. That may all change if a NASA-funded effort can harness microbes as an almost endless power source for the next generation of robotic explorers. Such microbial fuel cells could power… [Read more…]
January 6, 2012
Russia launched an ambitious Mars moon probe, the Phobos-Grunt mission, on Nov. 8, 2011 (EST) on a mission to collect the first samples of the Martian moon Phobos, but the spacecraft was soon marooned in Earth orbit. See how the Phobos-Grunt probe will fall to Earth in January 2012 in the SPACE.com infographic …. Source:LiveScience… [Read more…]
January 5, 2012
Mikael Granvik, Jeremie Vaubaillonc, Robert Jedickea Abstract We have for the first time calculated the population characteristics of the Earth’s irregular natural satellites (NES) that are temporarily captured from the near-Earth-object (NEO) population. The steady-state NES size-frequency and residence-time distributions were determined under the dynamical influence of all the massive bodies in the solar system… [Read more…]
January 5, 2012
Video of a passage of Phobos-Grunt over France on January 1st 2012, at a distance of 237 km. The satellite is moving from left to right and the Sun is on the right, the consequence being that the solar panels (on the left) do not receive sunlight. More details and interpretation on http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/phobos-grunt.html . Credit : Thierry… [Read more…]
January 4, 2012
Scientists have used magnetic fields to ‘levitate’ flies in the first weightless tests conducted outside space The technique, known as ”diamagnetic levitation”, allows water and organic based materials to become weightless. Floating freely inside a plastic tube, the flies were observed closely to spot any changes in their behaviour. The scientists confirmed effects previously seen… [Read more…]
January 4, 2012
… became the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon on January 4, 1959 Luna 1 was an unmanned space craft launched by the Soviet Space Agency. It is a major landmark in the history of lunar exploration because it is the first space craft to travel as far as the moon. The… [Read more…]
January 3, 2012
A Nobel prizewinning crystal has just got alien status. It now seems that the only known sample of a naturally occurring quasicrystal fell from space, changing our understanding of the conditions needed for these curious structures to form…. Read more: newscientist.com Read also: The quasicrystal from outer space
January 3, 2012
In the Andean mountain range, stretching across the border between Chile and Argentina, lies a volcanic caldera named Laguna del Maule, roughly 15 by 25 kilometers (9 by 15 miles) across. Within the northern part of the caldera lies Maule Lake, which is surrounded by a complex volcanic landscape. This perspective image is made from data acquired… [Read more…]
January 3, 2012
http://youtu.be/yb10Cpx27w0 Space probe gets up close to lunar crater that is two miles deep and so huge it can be seen from Earth with the naked eye Orbiter flies past just 16.2 miles up Images of crater twice as deep as Grand Canyon Shows layers of minerals like strip mines on Earth Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk
January 1, 2012
Russian space agency Roscosmos says 200kg fragments may survive re-entry but expects toxic fuel to vaporise A Russian spacecraft that became stranded in orbit on the way to Mars last year is expected to fall back to Earth next week. The 13.5 tonne Phobos-Grunt has been circling Earth since November when rocket boosters failed to… [Read more…]
December 31, 2011
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA’s Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)-A spacecraft is within 24 hours of its insertion burn that will place it into lunar orbit. At the time the spacecraft crossed the milestone at 1:21 p.m. PST today (4:21 p.m. EST), the spacecraft was 30,758 miles (49,500 kilometers) from the moon. Launched aboard the… [Read more…]
December 29, 2011
By Jonathan Amos Five days after a failed launch, the Russian Soyuz rocket system has been pressed back into service. The vehicle successfully put six spacecraft in orbit for US satellite phone and data company, Globalstar. The Soyuz lifted away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1709 GMT, ejecting the last of the six… [Read more…]
December 27, 2011
… around a Super Massive Black Hole Makoto Inoue, Hiromitsu Yokoo We describe a new system for a society of highly advanced civilizations around a super massive black hole (SMBH), as an advanced Type III “Dyson Sphere“, pointing out an efficient usage of energy for the advanced civilizations. SMBH also works as a sink for… [Read more…]
December 25, 2011
089:32:50 Mattingly: Apollo 8, Houston. [No answer.] 089:33:38 Mattingly: Apollo 8, Houston. 089:34:16 Lovell: Houston, Apollo 8, over. 089:34:19 Mattingly: Hello, Apollo 8. Loud and clear. 089:34:25 Lovell: Roger. Please be informed there is a Santa Claus. 089:34:31 Mattingly: That’s affirmative. You’re the best ones to know. -NASA The world is an awfully big place… [Read more…]
December 24, 2011
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce Census Bureau, the world’s population is approximately 7 billion (6,979,978,073+) people. Santa Claus has had to adapt over the years to having less and less time to deliver gifts to more people. To better assure prompt deliveries and safe flights, higher technology systems are increasingly being used by… [Read more…]
December 22, 2011
Space Station Commander Captures Unprecedented View of Comet Ιnternational Space Station Commander Dan Burbank captured spectacular imagery of Comet Lovejoy as seen from about 240 miles above the Earth’s horizon on Wednesday, Dec. 21. Today Burbank described seeing the comet two nights ago as “the most amazing thing I have ever seen in space,” in… [Read more…]
December 7, 2011
http://vimeo.com/19568852 The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and… [Read more…]
December 6, 2011
Five scientists speaking at a workshop at the 2011 Fall AGU meeting in San Francisco on Tuesday, December 6 at 10 AM PST will discuss the complex — and relatively new — research area of space weather. The term refers to a host of disturbances that can alter the vast electromagnetic system stretching from the… [Read more…]
December 5, 2011
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory. In it, the wind of charged particles streaming out from our sun has calmed, our solar system’s… [Read more…]
December 2, 2011
http://youtu.be/BwcJXUWXMTI Read also: Voyager – The interstellar mission
November 30, 2011
By Ted Greenwald - www.wired.com Eminent physicist Paul Davies has a proposal for you: a one-way ticket to the Red Planet. As it’s typically conceived, a round-trip Mars mission would take about two years and cost at least $80 billion. But you could cut 80 percent of the expense, Davies says, by nixing the return and… [Read more…]
November 30, 2011
BY STEPHEN CLARK SPACEFLIGHT NOW Plagued by an undiagnosed problem that stranded it in Earth orbit, Russia’s Phobos-Grunt Mars mission remained quiet Tuesday after renewed attempts to coax the craft back into contact with ground controllers. European Space Agency officials transmitted signals to raise Phobos-Grunt’s orbit Tuesday in hopes it would allow greater communications opportunities… [Read more…]
November 29, 2011
Light on Mars? Curiosity rover to fire ‘million bulb torch’ at planet’s surface to see if it’s habitable The Mars lander will fire a laser beam with the energy of a million lightbulbs at the surface of the red planet to see whether or not it could have supported life. The international team of space… [Read more…]
November 27, 2011
A video tribute to Carl Sagan — and to Earth, our one and only home … Upon seeing the above image of planet Earth, photographed from 4 billion miles away by Voyager 1, astronomer Carl Sagan was so moved that he wrote out his thoughts about the deeper meaning of this photograph. He later read… [Read more…]
November 26, 2011
NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket occurred at 10:02 a.m. EST (7:02 a.m. PST). http://youtu.be/qmJO449R_5g “We are very excited about sending the world’s most advanced… [Read more…]
November 25, 2011
Watch live streaming video from spaceflightnow at livestream.com http://youtu.be/P4boyXQuUIw Mars rover Curiosity poised for Nasa’s ‘most ambitious’ mission to planet The rover, part of the Mars Science Laboratory, will probe the Red Planet’s secrets with a wide array of scientific instruments Richard Luscombe A vehicle the size of a small 4×4,is about to embark on a one-way 350m-mile trip… [Read more…]
November 25, 2011
Satoshi Furukawa plays a little ball on his own when he has free time. http://youtu.be/kmnVrW7vGeQ
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May 31, 2012
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