Flown-to-the-Moon Omega Watch Sells for $245K
A chronograph flown on Apollo 17 sold at Christie’s New York for $245,000, setting a new record for the most paid for an Omega Speedmaster.Credit: Christie’s A watch that was flown to the moon, of the same make and model as the watches NASA issued to all of its Apollo astronauts to wear while in […]
Cosmic Lightsaber Slices Through Clouds in Awesome New Image
A young star wields a double-bladed lightsaber of its own creation in this infrared image captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Padgett (GSFC), T. Megeath (University of Toledo), and B. Reipurth (University of Hawaii) A powerful lightsaber slices through the dark clouds of dust and gas that surround it. It’s not […]
Galileo’s power of 12
Europe now has a dozen navigation satellites in orbit To source
Meteoroid Showers Help Build Moon's Wispy Atmosphere
NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission has turned up evidence that meteor showers help create the moon’s wispy atmosphere. Here, an artist’s concept of the LADEE spacecraft in orbit above the moon.Credit: NASA Ames/Dana Berry Meteoroid showers help create the moon’s exosphere, its wispy version of an atmosphere, a new study suggests. […]
Celestial 'Double-Bladed Lightsaber' Revealed By Hubble | Video
Just in time for the release of ‘Stars Wars: The Force Awakens’, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope team has released imagery of Herbig–Haro object 24 (HH24 ). These objects are “tangled, knotted clumps of nebulosity,” and in this case resembles Darth Maul’s weapon (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace villain). Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Digitized Sky Survey, […]
Shifting ice
ESA’s CryoSat mission has provided the best maps yet of the changing height of Earth’s largest ice sheets To source
International Instrument Delivered for NASA’s 2016 Asteroid Sample Return Mission
The OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter will create 3-D maps of asteroid Bennu to help the mission team select a sample collection site. To source
International Instrument Delivered for NASA’s 2016 Asteroid Sample Return Mission
The OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter will create 3-D maps of asteroid Bennu to help the mission team select a sample collection site. To source
SpaceX Preparing for Launch of 'Significantly Improved' Falcon 9
SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk, speaking at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 15, said the upcoming Falcon 9 was “significantly improved” over previous versions of the vehicle.Credit: AGU webcast WASHINGTON — SpaceX is gearing up for both the first launch of its Falcon 9 rocket since a June launch failure and the […]
Launch replay
Replay of the launch transmission of Soyuz carrying Galileo satellites 11 and 12 on 17 December at 11:51 GMT from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana To source
NASA Receives $19.3 Billion in Final 2016 Spending Bill
The omnibus spending bill released by Congressional appropriators Dec. 16 will give NASA an increase of $750 million over its original request for fiscal year 2016. WASHINGTON — The final version of a fiscal year 2016 spending bill will provide NASA with nearly $19.3 billion, funding most agency programs at or above the administration’s original […]
Incredible New Photos Reveal Pluto's Pits and Other Terrain
A new colorized image of Pluto, built from photos taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during its July flyby, depicts a strip 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide split between the dwarf planet’s al-Idrisi mountains and the flat Sputnik Planum.Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI Pluto’s complex geology just got a little less mysterious thanks to two incredible new photos […]
'Star Wars' Tech: 8 Sci-Fi Inventions and Their Real-Life Counterparts
A long time ago in a studio far, far away, filmmaker George Lucas created one of the seminal works of science fiction: the “Star Wars” movie series. Nearly 40 years later, the ideas introduced by the films are still staples of the genre, and with the theatrical premiere of the latest installment, “Star Wars: The […]