News (Page 896)

SpaceX Dragon Splashes Down in Pacific with Treasure Trove of Space Station Science The SpaceX Dragon CRS-10 spacecraft is pictured seconds before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on Mar. 19, 2017 after departing the International Space Station (ISS). Credit: SpaceX KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – SpaceX’s tenth contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station came to a safe conclusion with a splashdown of the Dragon spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean Sunday and successfully returned a treasure trove of more than two tons of precious science experiments and research samples from the space station. Researchers on Earth are eagerly awaiting the science data andRead More →

How Did Uranus Get its Name? The period known as the Scientific Revolution (ca. 16th to the 18th century) was a time of major scientific upheaval. In addition to advances made in mathematics, chemistry, and the natural sciences, several major discoveries were made in the field of astronomy. Because of this, our understanding of the size and structure of the Solar System was forever revolutionized. Consider the discovery of Uranus. While this planet had been viewed on many occasions by astronomers in the past, it was only with the birth of modern astronomy that its true nature came to be understood. And with William Herschel‘sRead More →

Ever Wondered What Final Approach To Mars Might Feel Like? We’ve posted several ‘flyover’ videos of Mars that use data from spacecraft. But this video might be the most spectacular and realistic. Created by filmmaker Jan Fröjdman from Finland, “A Fictive Flight Above Real Mars” uses actual data from the venerable HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and takes you on a 3-D tour over steep cliffs, high buttes, amazing craters, polygons and other remarkable land forms. But Fröjdman also adds a few features reminiscent of the landing videos taken by the Apollo astronauts. Complete with crosshatches and thruster firings, this video putsRead More →

Catch Comet 41P Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák At Its Best Comet 41P Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák glows green (left) and shows its true coma and just the hint of a stubby tail in the negative (red) image (right) from March 19th. Image credit and copyright: Hisayoshi Kato Miss out on comet 45P Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková? Is Comet 2P Encke too low in the dawn sky for your current latitude? Well, the Universe is providing us northerners with another shot at a fine binocular comet, as 41P Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák glides through Ursa Major this week. As seen from 30 degrees north, Comet 41P Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák (sometimes called “Comet 41P” or “Comet TGK”) starts the last weekRead More →

Delta IV Delivers Daunting Display Powering International Military WGS-9 SatCom to Orbit ULA Delta IV rocket streaks to orbit carrying the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS-9) tactical communications satellite for the U.S. Air Force and international partners from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fl, at 8:18 p.m. EDT on Mar. 18, 2017, in this long exposure photo taken on base. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – On the 70th anniversary year commemorating the United States Air Force, a ULA Delta IV rocket put on a daunting display of nighttime rocket fire power shortly after sunset Saturday, March 19 – powering a highRead More →

A Family Of Stars Torn Apart It sometimes doesn’t take much to tear a family apart. A Christmas dinner gone wrong can do that. But for a family of stars to be torn apart, something really huge has to happen. The dramatic break-up of a family of stars played itself out in the Orion Nebula, about 600 years ago. The Orion Nebula is one of the most studied objects in our galaxy. It’s an active star forming region, where much of the star birth is concealed behind clouds of dust. Advances in infrared and radio astronomy have allowed us to peer into the Nebula, andRead More →

Get Ready For The >100 Planet Solar System Pluto’s status as a non-planet may be coming to an end. Professor Mike Brown of Caltech ended Pluto’s planetary status in 2006. But now, Kirby Runyon, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University, thinks it’s time to cancel that demotion and restore it as our Solar System’s ninth planet. Pluto’s rebirth as a planet is not just all about Pluto, though. A newer, more accurate definition of what is and what is not a planet is needed. And if Runyon and the other people on the team he leads are successful, our Solar System would have moreRead More →

Sunset Delta Set to Dazzle Cape with Mighty Air Force SatCom Launch March 18 – Watch Live ULA Delta IV rocket poised for sunset blastoff with the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS-9) mission for the U.S. Air Force from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fl, on Mar. 18, 2017. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – As sunset dawns on the venerable Delta rocket program, the sole Delta slated to launch from the Cape this year is set to dazzle at sunset tonight, Saturday, March 18. And the launch site is drenched with brilliant blue skies this afternoon as I watched the DeltaRead More →

Stunning Imagery Shows 1st Nighttime Falcon 9 Launch off Pad 39A; EchoStar XXIII Photo/Video Gallery SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaks to orbit with EchoStar XXIII TV satellite in this long exposure photo taken in front of NASA’s countdown clock under moonlit skies at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 16 at 2:00 a.m. EDT. Credit: Ken Kremer/Kenkremer.com KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – The opening volley of March Launch Madness started brilliantly as showcased by stunning imagery of the inaugural nighttime launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 off historic pad 39A under moonlit skies along the Florida Space Coast on Thursday, March 15. TheRead More →

TRAPPIST 1: An Evening With Fraser Cain In case you haven’t heard, some new potentially habitable planets were discovered, and they’re named after beer. To celebrate two of our favorite things finally coming together, Forbidden Brewing Co. welcomes local space expert Fraser Cain for an evening of space talk, beer, and pizza. The newly discovered planets are called the TRAPPIST-1 planets, and they’re named after a type of beer brewed by Belgian Trappist Monks. The knowledgeable and entertaining Fraser Cain will host the evening, and will answer your questions about these fascinating planets and their star. Whether you’re just curious, or you’re a bona fideRead More →

NASA Twins Study Researchers Take Genetic Data To Next Level People who plan and conduct space missions never tire of telling us how hard it is to do things in space. Our next big goal is getting humans to Mars, and establishing a colony there. There are a multitude of technical and engineering hurdles to be overcome, but we think we can do it. But the other side of the coin is the physiological hurdles to be overcome. Those may prove to be much more challenging to deal with. NASA’s twins study is poised to add an enormous amount of data to our growing bodyRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout – Mar 17, 2017: Stuart McNeill of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain) Special Guest: Stuart McNeill is the the Community Engagement specialist in charge of Family Programs and Demonstrations at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Check out their membership site here. Guests: Kimberly Cartier ( KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier ) Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter) Their stories this week: The original weird star: Przybylski’s Star may contain short-lived isotopes Enceladus’ sub-surface ocean under thin(ner) ice Star orbiting black hole at 1% c We use a tool called Trello to submit and vote on storiesRead More →

Last Look At Mimas For A Long Time Since the Cassini mission arrived in the Saturn system in 2004, it has provided some stunning images of the gas giant and its many moons. And in the course of capturing new views of Titan’s dense atmosphere, Iapetus’ curious “yin-yang” coloration, and the water plumes and “tiger stripes” of Enceladus, it snapped the most richly-detailed images of Mimas ever seen. But like all good things, Cassini’s days of capturing close-up images of Mimas are coming to an end. As of January 30th, 2017, the probe made its final close approach to the moon, and took the lastRead More →

Zero2Infinity Successfully Test Launches Its Bloostar Prototype Founded in 2009, the private aerospace company Zero2Infinity – which is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain – was created with the vision of delivering orbital payloads and providing space tourism on a budget. But unlike your conventional aerospace companies – i.e. SpaceX, Blue Origin, Orbital ATK, etc – their plan is to do it all using high-altitude stratospheric balloons. On March 1st, the Zero2Infinity team passed a major milestone, deploying a prototype “rockoon” craft from the National Institute of Aerospace Technology‘s (INTA) facility in El Arenosillo, Spain. Known as Bloostar, this two-stage craft (which consists of a balloon andRead More →

Flawless SpaceX Falcon 9 Takes Rousing Night Flight Delivery of EchoStar TV Sat to Orbit The SpaceX Falcon 9 launches the EchoStar 23 telecomsat from historic Launch Complex 39A with countdown clock in foreground at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as display shows liftoff progress to geosynchronous orbit after post midnight blastoff on March 16 at 2:oo a.m. EDT. Credit: Ken Kremer/Kenkremer.com KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Under stellar Florida skies, a private SpaceX Falcon 9 took flight overnight and flawlessly delivered the commercial EchoStar 23 television satellite to geosynchronous orbit after high winds delayed the rockets roar to orbit by two days from Tuesday. BreakingRead More →

Russia Recruiting For Its Moon Bound Cosmonauts   Roscosmos has certainly come a long way in the past few decades. After facing an uncertain future in the 1990s, the federal space agency has rebounded to become a major player in space and a crucial partner in the International Space Station. And in the coming years, Roscosmos hopes to expand its reach further, with missions planned to the Moon and even Mars. Towards this end, on Tuesday, March 14th, the agency announced that it is conducting a recruitment drive for new cosmonauts. All are welcome, the agency stressed, to apply to become the next-generation of spaceRead More →

How Far is Venus From the Sun? Earth and Venus are often called “sister planets” because they share some key characteristics. Like Earth, Venus is a terrestrial planet (i.e. composed of silicate minerals and metals) and orbits within our Sun’s habitable zone. But of course, they are also some major differences between them, like the fact that Venus’ is atmosphere is extremely dense and the hottest in the Solar System. This is particularly interesting when you consider that Venus is not the closest planet to our Sun (that would be Mercury). In fact, its distance from the Sun is just over 70% the distance betweenRead More →

High Winds Scrub Legless Falcon 9 Liftoff Reset to March 16 – Live Webcast The countdown clock at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shows the progress of the SpaceX Falcon launch attempt with the EchoStar 23 telecomsat from historic Launch Complex 39A after midnight March 14. Liftoff has been rescheduled for March 16 at 1:35 a.m. EDT. Credit: Ken Kremer/Kenkremer.com KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – High winds halted SpaceX’s early morning attempt to launch a legless Falcon 9 rocket and the EchoStar XXIII commercial communications satellite soon after midnight Tuesday, Mar. 14, from the Florida Space Coast amidst on and off rain showers and heavy cloudRead More →

NASA Brings Trappist-1 Into Focus… Kinda Sorta On February 22nd, 2017, NASA announced the discovery of a seven-planet system around the red dwarf star known as TRAPPIST-1. Since that time, a number of interesting revelations have been made. For starters, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) recently announced that it was already monitoring this system for signs of advanced life (sadly, the results were not encouraging). In their latest news release about this nearby star system, NASA announced the release of the first images taken of this system by the Kepler mission. As humanity’s premier planet-hunting mission, Kepler has been observing this system since DecemberRead More →