Nancy Atkinson

About Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.

Find more about me on:

Here are my most recent posts

Join the 32-Hour Hangout-A-Thon for Space Education and Outreach

June 14, 2013

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter In the latest budget proposal for NASA, it appears as though one of NASA’s jewels — education and pubic outreach – is going to take a huge hit. The proposal seeks to slash NASA’s education budget by about a third, going [...]

Read the full article →

Astrophotos: The Galactic Desert

June 14, 2013

The desert provides some of the most stunning landscapes and skycapes, as evidenced by two recent astrophotos from Universe Today readers. The gorgeous lead image by Sean Parker of Tucson, Arizona is a 12-image panoramic view of the Milky Way arching over Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona. Sean noted on Flickr that if you [...]

Read the full article →

Get Ready for the ATV-4 Docking with this Fun Music Video

June 14, 2013

Recall how during a space shuttle mission, the astronauts were awoken each day with music radioed up from Mission Control? Now, ESA has started a tradition of creating a music video to celebrate various events, such as the docking of their Automated Transfer Vehicle. The ATV-4, named Albert Einstein, will dock with the International Space [...]

Read the full article →

The Epitome of Cool: Neil Armstrong and David Scott, 1966

June 13, 2013

So, you’ve just endured a harrowing experience where your orbiting spacecraft has gone wildly out of control. You somehow — while undergoing the incredible, vertigo-inducing G-forces of your spinning spacecraft — figure out a plan, undock your spacecraft from another spacecraft and abort your original mission. Six and a half orbits and ten hours and [...]

Read the full article →

MESSENGER’s Unique View: A Colorful, Spinning Planet Mercury

June 13, 2013

The MESSENGER mission has now mapped the entire surface of planet Mercury — and this is the first time this has even been done. MESSENGER is the first spacecraft to be in orbit of Mercury, and has been there since 2011, with a couple of flybys starting in 2008 as it slowly looped its way [...]

Read the full article →