News (Page 866)

JPL Needs Citizen Scientists To Hunt Martian Polygonal Ridges Mars has some impressive geological features across its cold, desiccated surface, many of which are similar to featured found here on Earth. By studying them, scientists are able to learn more about the natural history of the Red Planet, what kinds of meteorological phenomena are responsible for shaping it, and how similar our two planets are. A perfect of example of this are the polygon-ridge networks that have been observed on its surface. One such network was recently discovered by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in the Medusae Fossae region, which straddles the planet’s equator. MeasuringRead More →

Boeing Unveils Blue Spacesuits for Starliner Crew Capsule Chris Ferguson, Boeing director of Starliner Crew and Mission Systems and a former NASA astronaut and Space Shuttle commander wears the brand new spacesuit from Boeing and David Clark that crews will wear on Starliner missions to the ISS. Credit: Boeing Boeing has unveiled the advanced new lightweight spacesuits that astronauts will sport as passengers aboard the company’s CST-100 Starliner space taxi during commercial taxi journey’s to and from and the International Space Station (ISS) and other low Earth orbit destinations. The signature ‘Boeing Blue’ spacesuits will be much lighter, as well as more flexible and comfortableRead More →

What’s That Bright Star in the Sky? Every few months a bright star appears in the sky. Sometimes it’s off to the East, bright in the morning before the Sun rises. Other times, you can see it in the West right after the Sun sets. Experienced stargazers know this isn’t a star at all, of course, it’s Venus. That horrible twin planet, surrounded by a toxic choking atmosphere of superheated carbon dioxide. For a while it becomes the fourth brightest object in the sky: after the Sun, Moon and the International Space Station, if you can believe it. In dark skies, Venus gets so brightRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout – January 27, 2017: Kimberly Cartier Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain) Special Guest: Kimberly Cartier ( KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier ) Kimberly Cartier is a PhD candidate in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Pennsylvania State University where her primary research interest is extra-solar planets. Kimberly focuses on communication, public speaking, teaching, and public outreach, and is a regular contributor to the Weekly Space Hangout. Kimberly is the lead author on a recent paper in which the atmospheric characteristics of exoplanet WASP 103b are analysed. (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.09272v1.pdf) Please join us today as Kimberly discusses their findings. Guests: Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg) PaulRead More →

Space Jellyfish Show Types Of Pulsar Wind Nebulas Since they were first discovered in the late 1960s, pulsars have continued to fascinate astronomers. Even though thousands of these pulsing, spinning stars have been observed in the past five decades, there is much about them that continues to elude us. For instance, while some emit both radio and gamma ray pulses, others are restricted to either radio or gamma ray radiation. However, thanks to a pair of studies from two international teams of astronomers, we may be getting closer to understanding why this is. Relying on data collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory of two pulsarsRead More →

Carl Sagan’s Theory Of Early Mars Warming Gets New Attention Ah, the good old days. ESA’s Mars Express imaged Reull Vallis, a river-like structure believed to have formed when running water flowed in the distant Martian past, cuts a steep-sided channel on its way towards the floor of the Hellas basin. A thicker atmosphere that included methane and hydrogen in addition to carbon dioxide may have allowed liquid water to flow on Mars at different times in the past according to a new study. Credit and copyright: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum) Water. It’s always about the water when it comes to sizing up a planet’s potential toRead More →

A Farewell to Plutoshine Looking back at an overexposed Charon and Plutoshine. Credit: NASA/JPL/New Horizons Sometimes, its not the eye candy aspect of the image, but what it represents. A recent image of Pluto’s large moon Charon courtesy of New Horizons depicting what could only be termed ‘Plutoshine’ caught our eye. Looking like something from the grainy era of the early Space Age, we see a crescent Charon, hanging against a starry background… So what, you say? Sure, the historic July 14th , 2015 flyby of New Horizons past Pluto and friends delivered images with much more pop and aesthetic appeal. But look closely, andRead More →

Rogue NASA, EPA, NPS Twitter Accounts Launched to Protest Trump Directives Twitter page of Rogue NASA. Credit: Twitter Three federal agencies — the National Park Service, the EPA and now NASA — have allegedly launched unofficial “protest” accounts on Twitter in defiance of the Trump team’s directives to not blog, tweet or talk to the news media about climate changes issues. While it’s not unusual for a new administration to want to control the message, many bristle at what they see as an administration that wants to redefine and control scientific fact. That brings us to these accounts. Are they really created by NASA and otherRead More →

NASA Webb Telescope Resumes Rigorous Vibration Qualification Tests NASA engineers and technicians position the James Webb Space Telescope (inside a large tent) onto the shaker table used for vibration testing. Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn Engineers have resumed a series of critical and rigorous vibration qualification tests on NASA’s mammoth James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland to confirm its safety, integrity and readiness for the unforgiving environment of space flight. The vibration tests are conducted by the team on a shaker table at Goddard to ensure Webb’s worthiness and that it will survive the rough and rumbling ride experiencedRead More →

Galactic Stripping Mystery Uncovered It’s what you might call a case of galactic homicide (or “galacticide”). All over the known Universe, satellite galaxies are slowly being stripped of their lifeblood – i.e. their gases. This process is responsible for halting the formation of new stars, and therefore condemning these galaxies to a relatively quick death (by cosmological standards). And for some time, astronomers have been searching for the potential culprit. But according to a new study by a team of international researchers from the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Australia, the answer may have to do with the hot gas galactic clustersRead More →

Juno Just Took One Of The Best Images Of Jupiter Ever Wow! If you’ve ever wanted to know what it would be like to hang above Jupiter’s clouds, here you go. This absolutely stunning view of Jupiter’s northern latitudes shows incredible detail of gas giant’s swirling cloudtops. And it features, in the lower left in the image below, the storm on the gas planet known as NN-LRS-1, or more colloquially, the Little Red Spot. The JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft snapped this shot of Jupiter’s northern latitudes on Dec. 11, 2016. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstaedt/John Rogers. Juno’s JunoCam, a visible light camera, is able toRead More →

Japan Becomes A Military Space Player With Latest Launch The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has accomplished some impressive things over the years. Between 2003 (when it was formed) and 2016, the agency has launched multiple satellites – ranging from x-ray and infrared astronomy to lunar and Venus atmosphere exploration probes – and overseen Japan’s participation in the International Space Station. But in what is an historic mission – and a potentially controversial one – JAXA recently launched the first of three X-band defense communication satellites into orbit. By giving the Japanese Self-Defense Forces the ability to relay communications and commands to its armed forces,Read More →

Could NASA Be Muzzled Under Trump Administration? The Trump Administration appears to be trying to change how government agencies disseminate information to the public. According to reports from multiple outlets, several agencies are being told to discontinue or suppress communications with the public, the media and even Congress. Additionally, Reuters is reporting that the Trump administration has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to remove information about climate change from its website. All this has anyone interested in NASA’s activities wondering if the US space agency could be ordered to stifle its very active social media presence, or to remove the extensive information it hasRead More →

Carnival of Space #492-493 This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Allen Versfeld at his Urban Astronomer blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #492-493. And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out,Read More →

New Age in Weather Forecasting Begins with Spectacular 1st Images from NASA/NOAA GOES-16 Observatory GOES-16 (previously known as GOES-R) captured this view of the moon as it looked across the surface of the Earth on January 15, 2017. Like earlier GOES satellites, GOES-16 will use the moon for calibration. Credit: NOAA/NASA KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – A new age has begun in the nations weather forecasting capabilities with the release today (Jan. 23) of the spectacular first images gathered by the recently launched NASA/NOAA GOES-16 observatory. The highly advanced Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16) weather observatory lifted off two months ago atop a ULA AtlasRead More →

Vital Air Force Missile Reconnaissance Satellite SBIRS GEO 3 Launched – Photo/Video Gallery United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying SBIRS GEO Flight 3 early missile warning satellite for USAF lifts off at 7:42 p.m. ET on Jan. 20, 2017 from Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – A vital missile reconnaissance satellite for the U.S. Force soared to space atop an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral at dinnertime Friday night, Jan. 20, 2017. The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the $1.2 Billion Space Based Infrared SystemRead More →

Here’s the Highest Resolution Map of Pluto We’ll Get from New Horizons On July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons mission made history by conducting the first flyby of Pluto. This represented the culmination of a nine year journey, which began on January 19th, 2006 – when the spacecraft was launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. And before the mission is complete, NASA hopes to send the spacecraft to investigate objects in the Kuiper Belt as well. To mark the 11th anniversary of the spacecraft’s launch, members of the New Horizons team took part in panel a discussion hosted by the John Hopkins UniversityRead More →

How to See the Space Station Fly in Front of the Moon What strange creature is this flitting across the Moon? Several members of the European Space Agency’s Astronomy Center captured these views of the International Space Station near Madrid, Spain on January 14 as it flew or transited in front of the full moon. Credit: Michel Breitfellner, Manuel Castillo, Abel de Burgos and Miguel Perez Ayucar / ESA One-one thou… That’s how long it takes for the International Space Station, traveling at over 17,000 mph (27,300 kph), to cross the face of the Full Moon. Only about a half second! To see it with your own eyes,Read More →

USAF Missile Defense SBIRS Observatory Streaks to Orbit during Spectacular Evening Blastoff ULA Atlas V rocket carrying the USAF SBIRS GEO 3 missile defense satellite streaks to orbit on Jan. 20, 2017 after nighttime blastoff at 7:42 p.m. ET from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – A U.S. Air Force missile defense reconnaissance observatory that will track the telltale infrared signatures of incoming enemy missiles and is vital to America’s national security blasted off in spectacular fashion off this evening, Jan. 20, 2017, as it streaked to orbit from theRead More →

The Carina Constellation Welcome back to Constellation Friday! Today, in honor of the late and great Tammy Plotner, we will be dealing with the “keel of the ship”, the Carina constellation! In the 2nd century CE, Greek-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (aka. Ptolemy) compiled a list of all the then-known 48 constellations. This treatise, known as the Almagest, would used by medieval European and Islamic scholars for over a thousand years to come, effectively becoming astrological and astronomical canon until the early Modern Age. One of these constellations, known as Argo Navis, would eventually be divided into three asterism  – one of which became the southernRead More →