Universe Today (Page 407)

Success! NASA Confirms the Mole is Working Again. After months of setbacks, NASA says that the InSight Lander’s Mole is working again. InSight landed on Mars on Nov. 26 2018 in Elysium Planitia. Its mission is to study the interior of the planet, to learn about how Mars and other rocky planets formed. InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) … Continue reading “Success! NASA Confirms the Mole is Working Again.” The post Success! NASA Confirms the Mole is Working Again. appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

There’s the Curiosity Rover, On the Move, Seen from Space If the Curiosity rover was paranoid, would it feel like it was being watched? Well, it is being watched, by its brother in orbit, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The MRO watched Curiosity as it travelled through the ‘Clay-Bearing Unit‘ in Gale Crater, during June and July, 2019. NASA just released an animated GIF of Curiosity … Continue reading “There’s the Curiosity Rover, On the Move, Seen from Space” The post There’s the Curiosity Rover, On the Move, Seen from Space appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

What Was The First Color In The Universe? The universe bathes in a sea of light, from the blue-white flickering of young stars to the deep red glow of hydrogen clouds. Beyond the colors seen by human eyes, there are flashes of x-rays and gamma rays, powerful bursts of radio, and the faint, ever-present glow of the cosmic microwave background. The cosmos is … Continue reading “What Was The First Color In The Universe?” The post What Was The First Color In The Universe? appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Here’s the Picture We’ve Been Waiting for. Hubble’s Photo of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov Leave it up to the good ole Hubble Space Telescope. The workhorse telescope has given us a photo of the new interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. Take that, fancy new telescopes. 2I/Borisov has wandered into our Solar System from the deep cold of interstellar space, but nobody knows from whence it came, or how long it’s been … Continue reading “Here’s the Picture We’ve Been Waiting for. Hubble’s Photo of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov” The post Here’s the Picture We’ve Been Waiting for. Hubble’s Photo of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov appeared first on Universe Today. UniverseRead More →

An Army of Tiny Robots Could Assemble Huge Structures in Space A team from MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) recently unveiled their prototype for a new assembler robot, which could revolutionize construction as we know it! The post An Army of Tiny Robots Could Assemble Huge Structures in Space appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

NASA’s New Lunar Spacesuit is Going to be a Lot More Comfortable for Astronauts NASA is developing new spacesuits for their Artemis program. The new suits will give the astronauts greater mobility, will be safer, and will be designed from the ground up to fit women. The roots of modern spacesuits, or Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs) go back to the Apollo missions. In fact, the spacesuits that NASA astronauts … Continue reading “NASA’s New Lunar Spacesuit is Going to be a Lot More Comfortable for Astronauts” The post NASA’s New Lunar Spacesuit is Going to be a Lot More Comfortable for Astronauts appeared first onRead More →

SpaceX Files a Request to Launch Another 30,000 Satellites for Starlink, on Top of the 12,000 They’re Already Planning to Launch According to recent filings, SpaceX is hoping to send an additional 30,000 Starlink satellites to orbit in the coming years. The post SpaceX Files a Request to Launch Another 30,000 Satellites for Starlink, on Top of the 12,000 They’re Already Planning to Launch appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Some Quasars Shine With the Light of Over a Trillion Stars Quasars are some of the brightest objects in the Universe. The brightest ones are so luminous they outshine a trillion stars. But why? And what does their brightness tell us about the galaxies that host them? To try to answer that question, a group of astronomers took another look at 28 of the brightest and … Continue reading “Some Quasars Shine With the Light of Over a Trillion Stars” The post Some Quasars Shine With the Light of Over a Trillion Stars appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout: October 16, 2019 – Jeffrey Kargel Talks Climate Change on Earth and Beyond Hosts:Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain) Allen Versfeld (https://www.urban-astronomer.com/ / @uastronomer) Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org) Moiya McTier (https://www.moiyamctier.com/ / @GoAstroMo) Jeff Kargel is a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. He is a geologist, a glaciologist, and a planetary scientist. Climate change is a major thread, and that is what he is … Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: October 16, 2019 – Jeffrey Kargel Talks Climate Change on Earth and Beyond” The post Weekly Space Hangout: October 16, 2019 – Jeffrey Kargel Talks Climate Change onRead More →

NASA Engineer Has A Great Idea for a High-Speed Spacedrive. Too Bad it Violates the Laws of Physics When a NASA engineer announces a new and revolutionary engine that could take us to the stars, it’s easy to get excited. But the demons are in the details, and when you look at the actual article things look far less promising. To begin with, the article is an outline of an idea, not peer-reviewed … Continue reading “NASA Engineer Has A Great Idea for a High-Speed Spacedrive. Too Bad it Violates the Laws of Physics” The post NASA Engineer Has A Great Idea for a High-SpeedRead More →

Planet Sizes Matter for Habitability Too. In order to be considered habitable, a planet needs to have liquid water. Cells, the smallest unit of life, need water to carry out their functions. For liquid water to exist, the temperature of the planet needs to be right. But how about the size of the planet? Without sufficient mass a planet won’t have … Continue reading “Planet Sizes Matter for Habitability Too.” The post Planet Sizes Matter for Habitability Too. appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Robotic Spiders to Explore the Moon? Yes, Please! UK startup Spacebit is looking to democratize space with its Walking Rover mission, which will be the UK’s first lunar mission and the first rover to rely on legs to get around! The post Robotic Spiders to Explore the Moon? Yes, Please! appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

It Looks Like it’s Working! NASA InSight’s Mole is Making Progress Again Thanks to the Arm Scoop Hack NASA and the DLR are making some progress with the Mole. The Mole has been stuck for months now, and NASA/DLR have been working to get it unstuck. After removing the mole’s housing to get a better look at it with InSight’s cameras, the team came up with a plan. The team is using the … Continue reading “It Looks Like it’s Working! NASA InSight’s Mole is Making Progress Again Thanks to the Arm Scoop Hack” The post It Looks Like it’s Working! NASA InSight’s Mole isRead More →

NASA Has a New, All-Electric Airplane NASA’s first all-electric aircraft – the X-57 Maxwell – was recently delivered to the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) for testing. The post NASA Has a New, All-Electric Airplane appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Carnival of Space #633 This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by me at the CosmoQuest blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #633 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 susie@wshcrew.space, and … Continue reading “Carnival of Space #633” The post Carnival of Space #633 appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

This Dried Up Riverbed Shows that Water Once Flowed on the Surface of Mars From some viewpoints, Mars is kind of like a skeleton of Earth. We can see that it had volcanoes, oceans, and rivers, but the volcanoes no longer fume and the water is all gone. A new image from the ESA’s Mars Express drives the point home. The new image is of Nirgal Vallis, one of … Continue reading “This Dried Up Riverbed Shows that Water Once Flowed on the Surface of Mars” The post This Dried Up Riverbed Shows that Water Once Flowed on the Surface of Mars appeared first onRead More →

A Satellite Just Launched Whose Job is to Extend the Life of Geosynchronous Satellites Space Logistics LLC, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, has launched a satellite that can extend the life of other satellites. The satellite is called MEV-1, or Mission Extension Vehicle-1. MEV-1 is the first of its kind. MEV-1 was launched on a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 9th. It’s going … Continue reading “A Satellite Just Launched Whose Job is to Extend the Life of Geosynchronous Satellites” The post A Satellite Just Launched Whose Job is to Extend the Life of Geosynchronous Satellites appeared first onRead More →

Lava Flows on Venus Suggest That the Planet Was Never Warm and Wet A new study on the volcanic highlands of Venus casts doubt on whether or not the planet ever had oceans. The post Lava Flows on Venus Suggest That the Planet Was Never Warm and Wet appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

This is What Moondust Looks Like When You Remove All the Oxygen. A Pile of Metal The Moon has abundant oxygen and minerals, things that are indispensable to any space-faring civilization. The problem is they’re locked up together in the regolith. Separating the two will provide a wealth of critical resources, but separating them is a knotty problem. The Moon’s regolith varies from 2 meters (6.5 ft.) deep in mare regions, … Continue reading “This is What Moondust Looks Like When You Remove All the Oxygen. A Pile of Metal” The post This is What Moondust Looks Like When You Remove All the Oxygen. ARead More →

Weekly Space Hangout: October 7, 2019 – Marina Kounkel talks Stars and How They Form Hosts:Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)Sondy Springmann (@sondy) Beth Johnson (@planetarypan) Michael Rodruck (@michaelrodruck) This week we welcome Dr. Marina Kounkel, a postdoctoral scholar in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the Western Washington University. Her research focuses on observing the dynamics of young stars. Marina is co-author, with Kevin Covey (also from WWU,) of the … Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: October 7, 2019 – Marina Kounkel talks Stars and How They Form” The post Weekly Space Hangout: October 7, 2019 – Marina Kounkel talks Stars and How They FormRead More →