A dense network of small rivers or swampy areas appears to connect some of the seas on Saturn’s moon Titan, as seen in this comparison of data of the same area from two instruments on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Images from the radar instrument are on the left and images from the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) are on the right. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Are there waves on Titan’s lakes and seas? Cassini scientists say that the best chance of answering this question is with the May 23 flyby of Titan, when the Cassini spacecraft will be just 970 km (603 miles) over Titan’s biggest ‘lake,’ the northern sea named Ligeia Mare.
Lakes, seas, and rivers were discovered on Titan by Cassini in 2005, and since then, scientists and space enthusiasts have been intrigued about the possibility of what could be found in these bodies of hydrocarbon liquid. Future potential missions such as paddleboats have even been proposed. [click to continue…]
Three bright planets gather in the northwestern sky this week. This map shows the sky 30 minutes after sunset from the mid-northern latitudes. Stellarium
Planning a barbecue this weekend? You may want to top it off with a look at three bright planets shuttling about the western sky at dusk. Jupiter, Venus and Mercury gather for nearly a week of delightful alignments including three separate conjunctions staring right now. Mercury and Venus pair up on Friday; Mercury and Jupiter on Sunday and Venus and Jupiter on Monday. All three form a series of ever-changing triangular arrangements as the nights go by. [click to continue…]
The International Space Station may soon have its very own Star Trek food replicator.
Earlier this week, NASA awarded a $125,000 six month grant to the Systems & Materials Research Cooperation to design a 3D printer capable of printing a pizza from 30-year shelf stable foodstuffs. [click to continue…]
The Dream Chaser space plane atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Image Credit: SNC
It was surely one of those moments where NASA could hardly wait to tear off the shrink wrap. Sierra Nevada Corp.’s privately constructed Dream Chaser spacecraft engineering test article arrived at the Dryden Flight Research Center last week — wrapped in plastic for shipping protection — ahead of some flight and runway tests in the next few months.
Sol-X Chief Technology Officer Blaze Sanders wearing a Final Frontier Design space suit. Credit: Solar System Express.
Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Ron Atkins, a life-long supporter of human space exploration and an ardent advocate of “NewSpace” and Commercial Spaceflight. He curates and maintains “The NewSpace Daily” on Scoop.it
Tony Stark has been to a lot of cool places in that Iron Man get-up of his. But low Earth orbit might still be a bit beyond his operational flight envelope. Not so for the developers of the revolutionary RL Mark VI Space Diving suit. A hi-tech ensemble consisting of augmented reality goggles, power gloves, control moment gyros, and a low-cost commercial space suit, the RL Mark VI will allow future thrill seekers and space tourists an experience that up until now could only be imagined in the boldest science fiction. [click to continue…]
