Tag Archives | space

This summer, researchers tested two “hedgehog” robot prototypes, to get an idea of the machines’ potential to explore space locations inaccessible to conventional rovers. Wheeled robots like the car-size Mars rover Curiosity work well on planetary surfaces, but in the low-gravity environment of a comet or an asteroid, such machines would be in danger of […]

A World View Enterprises balloon about to lift off from southeastern Arizona on March 8, 2015, on the company’s first commercial flight.Credit: World View Enterprises The cost of sending a scientific experiment to the stratosphere aboard a balloon just went down. Arizona-based World View Enterprises announced today (Sept. 8) that it’s introducing a cost-sharing system […]

Astrophotographer Jeff Dai sent in a photo of Venus and Jupiter over Lake Namtso, Tibet, caught on July 15, 2015. Venus will be extremely bright in the morning sky during September and October.Credit: Jeff Dai If you see a bright light just above the horizon at sunrise, don’t panic! It’s not a UFO — it’s […]

This composite photo made from five images shows the International Space Station crossing the sun’s face on Sept. 6, 2015. The images were captured from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls An amazing new photo shows the International Space Station crossing the sun’s face. The picture, a composite of five images taken Sunday (Sept. […]

Small bodies have low gravity, presenting a challenge for exploration. Rovers can’t roll without traction. Stanford University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing two robotic ‘cubes with spikes’ that can operate in any position, sampling and sensing through their little lances.  Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech To source

Scott Kelly, ISS CDR., captured these geomagnetic storm signatures on September 7th, 2015, tweeting: “My gift to you on #LaborDay, #USA. Enjoy! #YearInSpace.” The Orion constellation and the Pleiades star cluster can be see ‘rising’ from the ISS point of view. Credit: NASA/@StationCDRKelly/Mash Mix by Space.com’s @SteveSpaleta To source

The moon will pass into Earth’s shadow producing a total lunar eclipse during the “Supermoon” – a time when the full moon occurs “at or near its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit,” according to NASA. Because this full moon happens on the night of the autumnal equinox (9-27-2015), it is also known […]

Acrobat Space Tourist on Flight Training Too Late to Save the Shuttle? The 1st Repeat Space Tourist Robert Bigelow: Lessons, Visions, Realities… Planning the Assault: Why Bomb the Moon? 5 Minutes in Heaven: Sub-Orbital Space Training SpaceShipTwo Makes First Solo Test Flight SpaceShipTwo Party Crashed by Winds Rocket Men – CNBC Business Nation with Guest […]

This remastered view of the Jupiter moon Europa is based on information from NASA’s Galileo mission of the 1990s.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute NASA’s upcoming mission to Europa may actually touch down on the potentially life-harboring Jupiter moon. While the main thrust of the Europa mission, which NASA aims to launch by the mid-2020s, involves characterizing the […]

An artist’s depiction of the distribution of the gas surrounding IRAS 16547-4247. The center is thought to host multiple young, high-mass stars. Outflows of gas push outward from the center vertically and horizontally, creating an hourglass structure.Credit: Alma Observatory While probing the heart of a massive-star-forming region, researchers found an intricate surprise: an unusual hourglass-shaped […]

Photographer Miguel Claro snapped this photograph of a full moon over Monsaraz from Portugal’s Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve Aug. 29.Credit: Miguel Claro Night Sky Photography/ www.miguelclaro.com An epic moon hangs over the medieval Portuguese village of Monsaraz in a new twilight photograph. Miguel Claro, an astrophotographer, snapped the picture at around 8 p.m. local time […]