Space and astronomy news
The Solar System: Solar System Guide The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) Mars Phobos and Deimos The Asteroid Belt Ceres Vesta Jupiter Jupiter’s Moons Galilean Moons Saturn Saturn’s Moons Uranus Uranus’ Moons Neptune Neptune’s Moons Dwarf Planets The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud Comets, Asteroids, and KBOs Outer Space: Stars Magnetars …
A NASA survey of astronauts and flight surgeons released on January 23, 2008 turned up no evidence of launch day drinking by flight crews, contradicting an earlier report by a health care panel that disclosed two instances of drunken astronauts. NASA surveyed 87 of all 98 astronauts as well as all 31 flight surgeons. None …
Continue reading “NASA Astronaut Survey: No Launch Day Drinking”
Monday, May 21 – In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy launches the country on a journey to the Moon as he makes one of his most famous speeches to Congress: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon …
Continue reading “What’s Up this Week: May 21 – May 27, 2007”
NASA senior managers have picked December 7 for the next launch for the space shuttle Discovery. If all goes well, STS-116 will blast off at 9:35 pm local time (0235 GMT December 8) carrying 7 astronauts, and return to the International Space Station. This time, the construction job will be to install a new section …
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Let’s start the week off with one of the finest globular clusters for both hemispheres – M2. There’s plenty in store as we explore history, take a look at planetary nebulae, seek out galaxies and hunt down open clusters. A pair of occultations will round out the week as we keep our eyes on the skies…
And find out what’s up!
Scientists have captured an image of Saturn’s magnetic field using a special instrument on board NASA’s Cassini spacecraft called the Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI). MIMI is able to measure how ions streaming from the Sun are pushed around by Saturn’s powerful magnetic field, and create a 3-D image of the planet’s surroundings. Using this instrument, the scientists discovered a powerful radiation field just inside Saturn’s rings.
Photographs taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft seem to indicate that there still could be active volcanism on the Red Planet. The spacecraft took detailed observations of five Martian volcanoes, and found that some had erupted as recently as 4 million years ago. Although this is ancient in human terms, it means that Mars is still probably geologically active. This is very important to biologists, because it means that there could be geothermic vents with heat and liquid water – havens for microbial life.
Image credit: NASA NASA has set up a new safety advisory panel to replace the previous group that resigned back in September following the Columbia accident investigation report. The new ten members make up the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, and will be an independent group responsible for safety oversight of NASA operations. This new …
Image credit: UA The construction of the world’s most powerful optical telescope took a significant step forward this week when the first of its huge mirrors was delivered. The Mount Graham International Observatory’s Large Binocular Telescope will eventually have twin 8.4 metre mirrors linked together, giving it an effective size of 11.8 metres. But the …
Image credit: NASA/JPL Time is running out for NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. After eight years of loyal service imaging Jupiter and its moons, NASA controllers have aimed it at the gas giant. On September 21, 2003, Galileo will crash into Jupiter and be destroyed; this will prevent any chance the spacecraft will unintentionally crash into Europa …
Continue reading “Galileo Will Plunge Into Jupiter on September 21”