Scott Kelly Prepares For a Spacewalk

Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly tries on his spacesuit for a fit check inside the U.S. Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks on Wednesday, Oct. 28 and Friday, Nov. 6. To source

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Scott Kelly Prepares For a Spacewalk

Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly tries on his spacesuit for a fit check inside the U.S. Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks on Wednesday, Oct. 28 and Friday, Nov. 6. To source

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Private Spaceflight Industry Aims to Shake Off a Rough Year

Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo under construction in Mojave, California.Credit: Virgin Galactic It’s been a tough year for private spaceflight, but the leaders of the burgeoning industry are determined to bounce back. Over the past 12 months, robotic resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) launched by both Orbital ATK and SpaceX failed, and Virgin […]

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On Pluto Time: Q&A with New Horizons Leader Alan Stern

Planetary scientist Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, speaks at the 2009 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.Credit: ISPCS BOULDER, Colo. — This past July, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft provided the first good looks at Pluto, and the piano-size probe might not be done exploring the solar system’s outer […]

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Space Junk Graphic

Falling Space Junk Will Burn Up In Earth's Atmosphere Next Month

A piece of space junk will fall back to Earth next month, giving researchers a chance to study how incoming objects behave when they hit the planet’s atmosphere. The object, which is known as WT1190F, is expected to enter Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 13 above the Indian Ocean, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) south of […]

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Exploring the seas, thanks to space

An underwater robot initially built to help astronauts train for life in weightlessness is now being tested in the Mediterranean Sea. One day, robots like this may carry out sophisticated missions on our ocean floors, from finding lost aircraft blackboxes to mining minerals or maintaining the sites of ancient pirate shipwrecks. To source

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Get Lost in This Jaw-Dropping View of the Eagle Nebula

It’s easy to get lost in this jaw-dropping snapshot of the Eagle Nebula, which offers a high-resolution view of an incredible space landscape. The Eagle Nebula is a massive collection of gas and dust, which serves as fertile soil for the birth of new stars. The blue, lagoonlike region at the center of the image […]

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Cassini to Fly Past Enceladus

NASA Probe to Dive Through Saturn Moon's Icy Plume Wednesday

Scientists are about to get their best look ever at the ocean that sloshes beneath the surface of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. On Wednesday (Oct. 28), NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will zoom just 30 miles (50 kilometers) above Enceladus , flying through and sampling the plume of material that erupts from the satellite’s south polar region. […]

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Astronaut's #spacerocks Contest to Award Space Patches for Song Titles

British astronaut Tim Peake’s #spacerocks contest will challenge his Twitter followers to name his favorite songs. Winners will receive what Peake describes as “possibly the coolest ever patches flown in space,” as pictured above.Credit: ESA/NASA/collectSPACE.com Can you name that tune — from space? Astronaut Tim Peake will challenge his Twitter followers  to do just that […]

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Space, astronomy and science