I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but I wanted to give you all another reminder that there's going to be a total lunar eclipse on March 3, 2007.
Read more…
Filed under: Eclipses | Comments Off
Workers broke ground this week on a new construction site at the European Space Agency's new Soyuz launch base in French Guiana. Currently, Soyuz rockets only blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But at the end of 2008, the rockets will roar from this facility as well.
Read more…
Filed under: Satellites, Space Flight | Comments Off
One of the mysteries that has puzzled physicists has to do with black holes. When information goes into a black hole, is it completely destroyed, or is it maintained in some form? Physicist Stephen Hawking believes that black holes will evaporate over long periods of time, slowly releasing featureless particles. Whatever information went into the black hole would then be destroyed.
Read more…
Filed under: Black Holes | Comments Off
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft got a big speed boost today, when it used Jupiter's gravity to give it a slingshot towards its final destination of Pluto. It didn't exactly skim the planet's surface, but New Horizons got as close as 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) to Jupiter.
Read more…
A hail storm pounded the Space Shuttle Atlantis on Tuesday, chewing up foam at the top of the shuttle's external fuel tank. The damage was so significant that managers decided to delay the shuttle's launch until the damage can be repaired.
Read more…
Filed under: Space Shuttle | Comments Off
Telescopes located on the Earth suffer from having to peer through our thick atmosphere. That's why they're located at high altitudes, where the air is cold and clear. In fact, the best place on Earth to locate a telescope is in Antarctica – the air doesn't get any colder or clearer.
Read more…
Filed under: Observatories | Comments Off
Although NASA has its Messenger spacecraft headed towards the planet Mercury, the European Space Agency is planning a mission of its own called BepiColumbo. The agency recently announced that it has "adopted" the BepiColumbo mission, officially greenlighting its development.
Read more…
Filed under: Mercury, Missions | 1 Comment »
For the upcoming lunar return missions, the astronauts will be staying on the surface of the Moon far longer than they did during the Apollo. They'll need someplace safe to live.
Read more…
Comet McNaught, one of the brightest comets in last few decades recently swept past the Sun, providing a beautiful show. Unfortunately, the comet was so low to the horizon that only viewers in the Southern hemisphere were able to see its brightest point.
Read more…
Filed under: Comets | Comments Off
Our Milky Way is a complex and majestic barred spiral galaxy. But 13.7 billion years ago it began, like all galaxies, from the elementary particles formed in the Big Bang. How did our galaxy grow from nothing to the hundreds of billions of stars we see today?
Read more…
Although the centre of the Milky Way is obscured by gas and dust, you can see right through using wavelengths other than the visible spectrum. Infrared is great, but it can also be revealed in gamma rays. And here's the strange thing, gamma rays are pouring out from the centre of our galaxy.
Read more…
Filed under: Black Holes | Comments Off
Monday, February 26 – Today is the birthdate of Camille Flammarion. Born in 1842, he became a widely read author in astronomy and conceived the idea that we were not alone – the idea of extraterrestrial life. Yet, Flammarion was just a little bit more than the great-grandfather of SETI. In 1877, Flammarion had an unusual chance that most of us only dream of. He had his hands on a personal copy and notes of the Messier Catalog. Using it as a reference, he later revised it, but his studies led him to identify M102 with NGC 5866 before 1917. By 1921, Flammarion had added M104 – now known as NGC 4594 – to the catalog as well, and it became the first of many additions.
Read more…
Filed under: What's Up | Comments Off
This absolutely stunning photograph was taken by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft during its recent flyby past Mars on Saturday. In order to receive a gravity boost from the planet, the spacecraft flew past only 1,000 km above the surface.
Read more…
Filed under: Mars | Comments Off
Obviously there's no way to see what our Sun looked like when it was still forming billions of years ago, but you can do the next best thing. Find a newly forming star with very similar mass and chemical constituents, and see how it's starting out.
Read more…
Filed under: Astronomy | 1 Comment »
When we think of a galaxy, we think of our own Milky Way or perhaps Andromeda; a majestic spiral containing hundreds of billions of stars. Or maybe we think of an irregular galaxy, not so majestic-looking, but still made of regular stuff, like stars, planets… people.
Read more…
Filed under: Astronomy, Dark Matter | 5 Comments »
Asteroids Carnival of Space distance from earth distance from the sun Earth earth from space Earth Observation gravity images ISS Jupiter LCROSS LRO Mars Mercury milky way Moon NASA Neptune photos Physics picture pictures planet earth planet mercury planets Pluto satellite Satellites Saturn Solar System Space Flight spaceflight Space Shuttle Star stars sun telescope Telescopes the sun Uranus Venus volcano volcanoes Where In the Universe?
