Universe Today
The Magellenic Clouds Stay Connected By A String Of Stars
A bridge of stars between the Magellanic Clouds helps unravel a mystery.
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Uber Brings In NASA Engineer To Build Flying Cars
Uber recently announced that they have hired NASA engineer Mark Moore to spearhead the company's VTOL transit program, known as Uber Elevate.
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31 Years After Disaster, Challenger Soccer Ball Finally Gets To Orbit
A soccer ball on the ISS pays tribute to the seven astronauts who died in the Challenger disaster.
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Carnival of Space #495
Curiosity's Martian Chronicles Rife With Intriguing Inconsistencies
Using data obtained from rock samples since 2011, one of Curiosity's science teams has deduced that ancient Mars did not have enough carbon dioxide to maintain liquid water
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Cassini Images Of Enceladus Highlight Possible Cradle For Life
Images of Enceladus highlight its frozen, reflective beauty, and its potential as a cradle for life.
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SpaceX Awaits FAA Falcon 9 Launch License for 1st Pad 39A Blastoff on NASA ISS Cargo Flight
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - With liftoff tentatively penciled in for mid-February, SpaceX still awaits FAA approval of a launch license for what will be the firms first Falcon 9 rocket to launch from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center - on a critical NASA mission to resupply the space station - the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed today to Universe Today.
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Watch Comet 45P Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková Fly Past Earth This Week
Hankering for some cometary action? An interplanetary interloper pays us a visit this weekend, sliding swiftly through the pre-dawn northern hemisphere sky.
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How Long is a Day on Venus?
Venus is a planet of extremes: extreme heat, extreme weather, and extremely long days. In fact, a single day on Venus lasts as long as 116.75 Earth days.
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A Black Hole's Record Breaking Lunch
Messier 34 - the NGC 1039 Open Star Cluster
Located in the northern skies, in the direction of the Perseus constellation, is the open star cluster known as Messier 34.
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Astronomy Cast Ep. 439: Destroy and Rebuild, Pt. 3: How Do We Terraform Earth?
Ancient Annular: Dating Joshua's Eclipse
Astronomy turns up in fascinating junctures in history. Besides just the romantic angle, we can actually pin down some contextual events in ancient history if we can tie them in with an event witnessed in the heavens.
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See a Flirtatious Lunar Eclipse This Friday Night
This Friday evening watch the Moon tippy-toe right up to Earth's inner shadow for a sweet penumbral eclipse.
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Juno Buzzes Jupiter a mere 4,300 Km's above the Cloud Tops
Juno recently conducted its fourth close flyby of Jupiter (a perijovian maneuver), and NASA is once again seeking public input on what they want to see photographed during the next pass.
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Used SpaceX Booster Set for Historic 1st Reflight is Test Fired in Texas
The first orbit class SpaceX rocket that will ever be reflown to launch a second payload to space was successfully test fired by SpaceX engineers at the firms Texas test facility last week.
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The Race To Image Exoplanets Heats Up!
The Cassiopeia Constellation
In the northern skies (recognizable from its W shape) is the familiar constellation of Cassiopeia, one of the 48 traditional constellations
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Weekly Space Hangout - February 3, 2017: Meredith Rawls & the LSST
Meteorite Confirms 2 Billion Years of Volcanic Activity on Mars
A Martian meteorite that landed in Africa in 2012 has confirmed that Martian volcanic activity lasted 3 billion years or longer.
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A Novel Concept For Braking Breakthrough Starshot
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute have come up with an interesting way to slow down Starshot's mission to Alpha Centauri, a proposal which has the side benefit of exploring Proxima b as well.
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Superbowl Smackdown: Watch the Moon Occult Aldebaran on Sunday
Sure, this Superbowl Sunday brings with it the promise of sacks, fumbles and tackles... but have you ever seen the Moon run down a star in the end zone? Just such an event, termed as an occultation happens this weekend for folks living around the Mediterranean and — just maybe for some sharp-eyed telescope owning observers based around the Caribbean this coming weekend.
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Get Away From It All with these Amazing DTM Views of Mars
Preleminary Results In NASA Twins Study Released
NASA has released the preliminary results of their study of prolonged stays in space on the human body.
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What is the Weather like on Mars?
Martian weather is both fascinating and extreme, involving such things as dry ice snows, planet-wide dust storms, and aurorae.
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Outstanding Opportunity Rover Making 'Amazing New Discoveries' 13 Years After Mars Touchdown - Scientist Tells UT
NASA's truly outstanding Opportunity rover continues "making new discoveries about ancient Mars" as she commemorates 13 Years since bouncing to a touchdown on Mars, in a feat that is "truly amazing" - the deputy chief scientist Ray Arvidson told Universe Today exclusively.
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What is a Butte?
The geological feature known as a "butte" (French for "small hill") is quite common to Earth, and planets like Mars as well.
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Vortex Coronagraph A Game Changer For Seeing Close In Exoplanets
A new instrument installed on the Keck Observatory allows astronomers to see exoplanets that are very close to their stars.
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Carnival of Space #494
SpaceX Shuffles Falcon 9 Launch Schedule, NASA Gets 1st Launch from Historic KSC Pad 39A
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - SpaceX announced Sunday (Jan. 29) a significant shuffle to the Falcon 9 launch schedule, saying that a key NASA mission to resupply the space station is moving to the head of the line and will now be their first mission to launch from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center- formerly used to launch space shuttles.
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What is a Planet?
The concept of a planet has evolved considerably over time, thanks to ongoing discoveries and refinements in the field of astronomy.
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Unprecedented Views of Saturn's Rings as Cassini Dances Death Spiral
Messier 33 - The Triangulum Galaxy
Located in the Triangulum constellation, about 3 million light-years from Earth, is the Triangulum Galaxy (aka. Messier 33).
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NASA Tribute Exhibit Honors Fallen Apollo 1 Crew 50 Years After Tragedy
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER VISITOR COMPLEX, FL - NASA unveiled a new tribute exhibit honoring three fallen astronaut heroes 50 years to the day of the Apollo 1 tragedy on January 27, 1967 when the three man crew perished in a flash fire on the launch pad during a capsule test that was not considered to be dangerous.
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A Proposal For Juno To Observe The Volcanoes Of Io
Two Boston University researchers propose a plan for NASA's Juno probe to remotely study Io's volcanic eruptions.
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Harvard Physicist Creates Metallic Hydrogen Using Diamond Vise
According to a study by two Harvard researchers, they have succeeded in creating metallic hydrogen for the first time in history.
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Four Planet System Directly Imaged In Motion
Jason Wang, a graduate student from UC Berkeley, has created a video that captures the peculiar orbits of gas giants in a four-planet system
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JPL Needs Citizen Scientists To Hunt Martian Polygonal Ridges
NASA is seeking citizen-scientists to help them identify ridge formations on Mars, which could help us to understanding at the geological forces at work there
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Boeing Unveils Blue Spacesuits for Starliner Crew Capsule
Boeing has unveiled the advanced new lightweight spacesuits that astronauts will sport as passengers aboard the company's CST-100 Starliner space taxi during commercial taxi journey's to and from and the International Space Station (ISS) and other low Earth orbit destinations.
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What's That Bright Star in the Sky?
What's that bright light in the sky? How come I never noticed it before? That's not a star at all, it's Venus, and it is awesome.
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Weekly Space Hangout - January 27, 2017: Kimberly Cartier & Exoplanet WASP 103b
Space Jellyfish Show Types Of Pulsar Wind Nebulas
A series of studies based on data obtained from Chandra X-ray observatory may held shed light on the mysteries of pulsars.
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Carl Sagan's Theory Of Early Mars Warming Gets New Attention
Carl Sagan hit on the idea 40 years ago. Now, a team of scientists have discovered that a trifecta of gases may have warmed Mars enough for liquid water to gush.
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A Farewell to Plutoshine
Sometimes, its not the eye candy aspect of the image, but what it represents. A recent image of Pluto's large moon Charon courtesy of New Horizons caught our eye. Looking like something from the grainy era of the early Space Age, we see a crescent Charon, hanging against a starry background...
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Rogue NASA, EPA, NPS Twitter Accounts Launched to Protest Trump Directives
Rogue sites protesting the Trump team's new guidelines for federal agencies are popping up everywhere.
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NASA Webb Telescope Resumes Rigorous Vibration Qualification Tests
Engineers have resumed a series of critical and rigorous vibration qualification tests on NASA's mammoth James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland to confirm its safety, integrity and readiness for the unforgiving environment of space flight, after pausing due to a testing 'anomaly' detected in early December 2016.
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Galactic Stripping Mystery Uncovered
Juno Just Took One Of The Best Images Of Jupiter Ever
Japan Becomes A Military Space Player With Latest Launch
In a potentially controversial move, Japan recently deployed an x-band communications satellite to reduce its reliance on other providers for communications with its military forces.
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Could NASA Be Muzzled Under Trump Administration?
