Missions

Going to the Moon? Don’t Touch the Historical Artifacts, NASA Says

May 24, 2012

Don’t say you haven’t been warned. NASA put out an official document today specifying how close any future spacecraft and astronauts visiting the Moon can come to the artifacts left on the lunar surface by all US space missions, including the Apollo landing sites, any robotic landing sites like Surveyor and impact sites like LCROSS. [...]

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Spacecraft Captures Mercury-Jupiter Conjunction

May 22, 2012

Here’s a great shot from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft of Mercury (top planet) and Jupiter snuggling up together, along with the Pleiades cluster, all close to Sun, as seen from SOHO’s LASCO C3 instrument (Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph). SOHO has been in space since 1995, and is a workhorse of solar [...]

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Watch Jupiter as a ‘Space Invader’

May 18, 2012

This great video created from images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on May 13 and 14 show Jupiter as it comes close to the Sun (from our vantage point) in a solar conjunction. But what it really looks like is the old “Space Invaders” video game, with Jupiter marching across the screen. [...]

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Opportunity Roving Mars Once Again

May 16, 2012

After spending 19 weeks working in one place during the Martian winter in Meridian Planum, the Opportunity Mars rover is now roving once again. During the winter, available solar power was too low for driving, but on May 8th (here on Earth), Opportunity took its first drive since Dec. 26, 2011. She drove about 3.67 [...]

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Vote for the Curiosity Rover to Become a LEGO Toy

May 14, 2012

I know a lot of our readers are — like me — huge LEGO fans, and of course, we have lots of fans of the Mars Science Laboratory, a.k.a the Curiosity rover. One of our readers, Allen Eyler, just sent me an email on how disappointed he and many other rover fans are about the [...]

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Moon Craters 3-D!

May 4, 2012

While many are hoping to see a larger-than-usual view of the Moon this weekend, here’s some great 3-D closeups courtesy of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and imaging wizard Nathanial Burton Bradford. This great 3-D view (Red/Cyan glasses needed) shows quite an interesting young impact crater on the Moon, (17.682°S, 144.408°E) west of Isaev crater. Click [...]

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Weird Swirly Features Found on Mars

April 26, 2012

Strange coiling spiral patterns have been found on Mars surface by a graduate student who was doing what many of us enjoy: looking through the high-resolution images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Similar features have been seen on Earth, but this is the first time they have been identified on Mars. [...]

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Outer Space – Mind Blowing Video from Jupiter and Saturn

April 26, 2012

Video Caption: This mesmerizing video unveils incredibly amazing sequences around Jupiter and Saturn from NASA’s Cassini and Voyager missions set to stirring music by “The Cinematic Orchestra -That Home (Instrumental)”. Credit: Sander van den Berg Don’t hesitate 1 moment ! Look and listen to this mind blowing video of the Jupiter and Saturnian systems. If [...]

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Dawn Reveals More of Vesta’s Secrets

April 25, 2012

Vesta is finally giving up its secrets, thanks to the Dawn spacecraft! The latest images sent back from Dawn are revealing new details about the giant asteroid, including its varied surface composition, sharp temperature changes and clues to its internal structure. Scientists say all the information garnered by Dawn will help us to better understand [...]

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Join the Million Crater Challenge

April 23, 2012

Like a challenge? Right now you can join in a contest to mark a million craters, as part of the Moon Mappers project. “Our challenge to you is to try and observe 1 million craters on the Moon before the full Moon again rises in the evening sky on May 5,” said Dr. Pamela Gay, [...]

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Discovery Enters Eternal Smithsonian Home as Historic Relic

April 20, 2012

Space Shuttle Discovery, the longest serving and most flown spaceship in human history, entered her eternal home today, Thursday, April 19, at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum Annex in Virginia. Discovery thereby assumed her new status as a museum relic and monument to the promise and glorious dreams of space exploration, inspiring future [...]

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Features on Mars Erased From Existence

April 19, 2012

More proof that Mars is an ever-changing world: In 2010, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera spotted evidence that a boulder had rolled down an incline in a crater. The boulder left a visible track in the Martian regolith big enough to be spotted by MRO. But just one Martian year later, the tracks are [...]

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NASA Wants Your Help in Finding Asteroids

April 19, 2012

If you are an amateur astronomer who likes a challenge, NASA has a new project and is looking for a little help from their amateur astronomers friends. Called called “Target Asteroids!” the project is part of the upcoming OSIRIS-REx mission to improve basic scientific understanding of Near Earth Objects. NASA is hoping amateur astronomers can [...]

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Watch it Rain on the Sun

April 18, 2012

The big solar flare and coronal mass ejection earlier this week created an unusual event on the Sun: it rained. Not water drops of course, but coronal rain. After the eruption, blobs of plasma fell back to the surface of the Sun, sometimes making ‘splashes’ where they hit. Coronal rain is plasma gas that condenses [...]

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JUICE to Jupiter Could Be ESA’s Next Major Science Mission

April 18, 2012

The Science Programme Committee of the European Space Agency has recommended that the next major space mission for ESA be an orbiter mission to the Jupiter system named JUICE, the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer. This mission would launch in about 2020 and explore potentially habitable moon around the gas giant, Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. This [...]

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Discovery Does Dulles & DC

April 18, 2012

Space Shuttle Discovery took off from Florida on her final mission today atop a modified Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, headed north and ultimately did a well earned victory lap over the US capitol before closing out her flying career and landing at nearby Dulles Airport and her permanent new museum home at the Smithsonian National [...]

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Discovery Poised for Final Takeoff on April 17

April 17, 2012

Space Shuttle Discovery is poised for her final takeoff, bolted firmly on top of the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This morning (Tuesday, April 16) the mated pair were backed out of the Mate/Demate Device at the Shuttle Landing Facility. See more images from Universe Today photographer [...]

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The Sun Spits Out a Coronal Mass Ejection

April 16, 2012

Ever squirted water out of your mouth when playing in a swimming pool or lake? This Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) release by the Sun on April 15, 2012 looks reminiscent of such water spouting. But this burst of solar plasma being hurled from the eastern limb of the Sun is more like an explosion, as [...]

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The Heavens are Ablaze With Blazars

April 12, 2012

From a JPL press release: Astronomers are actively hunting a class of supermassive black holes throughout the universe called blazars thanks to data collected by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mission has revealed more than 200 blazars and has the potential to find thousands more.

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Deep Space Atomic Clock Mission Will Improve Navigation Technology

April 11, 2012

Precise radio navigation — using radio frequencies to determine position — is vital to the success of all deep-space exploration missions. To improve navigation technology, a small demonstration mission called the Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) will fly as part of a future NASA mission in order to validate a miniaturized, ultra-precise mercury-ion atomic clock [...]

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