What Would a Realistic Space Battle Look Like? Science fiction space movies can do a poor job of educating people about space. In the movies, hot-shot pilots direct their dueling space ships through space as if they’re flying through an atmosphere. They bank and turn and perform loops and rolls, maybe throw in a quick […]
The Crew of the ISS has Found the Source of the Station’s Air Leak The ISS crew has found the source of the elusive leak using (wait for it!) tea leaves! The hole is now patched, but a permanent fix is still needed. The post The Crew of the ISS has Found the Source of […]
We use the transit method to find other planets. Which extraterrestrial civilizations could use the transit method to find Earth? We have found more than 4,000 planets orbiting other stars. Life on distant worlds could find us in the same way. The post We use the transit method to find other planets. Which extraterrestrial civilizations […]
The Oxygen Supply has Failed in the Russian Zvezda Module of the ISS. Don’t Worry, the Astronauts aren’t in Danger, but the Station is Showing its Age Crews aboard the ISS are working to repair the leak, which posed no significant risk. Unfortunately, it shows that the ISS is getting on in years! The post […]
Success! OSIRIS-REx Touches Asteroid Bennu to Collect Samples Out in the asteroid belt, 207 million miles (334 million km) from Earth, a little spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Asteroid Bennu today, attempting to collect samples of dust and rocks. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spent about […]
Wow, Betelgeuse Might Be 25% Closer than Previously Believed In the last year, Betelgeuse has experienced two episodes of dimming. Normally, it’s one of the ten brightest stars in the sky, and astrophysicists and astronomers got busy trying to understand what was happening with the red supergiant. Different research came up with some possible answers: […]
It’s still possible to detect the site of the 2017 kilonova explosion It’s been over a thousand days since the historic kilonova observation, and yet the region continues to emit X-rays, long after models predicted they should have faded away. What’s going on? August 2017 was a pretty momentous month in astronomy. The gravitational wave […]
Watch “Live” as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Nabs an Asteroid Sample Today’s the day! The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is going to reach out and boop asteroid Bennu! You can watch the broadcast here as the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission attempts to collect a sample of an asteroid on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 6:12 […]
You’ll Experience 200 Times More Radiation Standing on the Moon than Standing on the Earth January 31, 2021, will mark 50 years since the launch of Apollo 14. This historic mission was the first to broadcast a color television signal from the surface of the Moon and marked the heroic return to space of America’s […]
NASA and Seven Countries Sign the Artemis Accords for the Exploration of the Moon. Russia Declined to Participate It looks like Russia is thumbing its nose at international cooperation on the Moon. They’ve refused to sign the Artemis Accords, which are a set of rules governing Lunar exploration. NASA and seven other countries have signed […]
What’s Happening with Betelgeuse? Astronomers Propose a Specialized Telescope to Watch the Star Every Night An international team of astronomers recommends creating “Betelgeuse Scope” to monitor this mysterious star find out why it has been acting so strangely of late! The post What’s Happening with Betelgeuse? Astronomers Propose a Specialized Telescope to Watch the Star […]
The galaxy with 99.99% dark matter isn’t so mysterious any more The dwarf galaxy known as Dragonfly 44 caused a stir recently: apparently it had way, way more dark matter than any other galaxy. Since this couldn’t be explained by our models of galaxy formation, it seemed like an oddball. But a new analysis reveals […]
NASA Announces 14 New “Tipping Point” Technologies for its Lunar Exploration NASA recently awarded contracts to fourteen companies to develop technologies that will help them return to the Moon, and stay there! The post NASA Announces 14 New “Tipping Point” Technologies for its Lunar Exploration appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to Source
We actually don’t know how fast the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole is spinning but there might be a way to find out The stars at the center of our galaxy could tell us just how fast our closest supermassive black hole is spinning. The post We actually don’t know how fast the Milky Way’s […]
Great Barrier Reef Has Lost Half of its Coral Over the Last 25 Years A new study found that warmer ocean temperatures driven by climate change have caused Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to lose more than half of its corals since 1995. The researchers say virtually all coral populations along the Great Barrier Reef have […]
Impatient? A Spacecraft Could Get to Titan in Only 2 Years Using a Direct Fusion Drive Fusion power is the technology that is thirty years away, and always will be – according to skeptics at least. Despite its difficult transition into a reliable power source, the nuclear reactions that power the sun have a wide […]
InSight’s ‘Mole’ is Now Completely buried! It’s been a long road for InSight’s Mole. InSight landed on Mars almost two years ago, in November 2018. While the lander’s other instruments are working fine and returning scientific data, the Mole has been struggling to hammer its way into the surface of the planet. After much hard […]
Operating a Rover in Real-time From a Distance There are instances other than pandemics when it is necessary to work remotely. Spacecraft operators are forced to do most of their work remotely while their charges travel throughout the solar system. Sometimes those travels take place a little closer to home. Engineers at DLR, Germany’s space […]
Pluto has Snowcapped Mountains, But Why? We can thank NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft for opening our eyes up to Pluto’s complexity. On July 14th, 2015, the spacecraft came within 12,500 km (7,800 mi) of the dwarf planet. During the flyby, New Horizons was able to characterize Pluto’s atmosphere and its surface. Among the things New Horizons saw […]
Summer is Dust Devil Time on Mars Just like Earth, Mars undergoes seasonal changes due to its axial tilt. And while summer heat on Mars can’t compare with Earth’s, along with the Martian summer warmth comes an increase in small whirling storms known as dust devils. Several spacecraft on or orbiting Mars have captured dust […]
