Tag Archives | space.com

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe — which will fly closer to the sun than any spacecraft in history — recently passed an important prelaunch test of its solar panels with flying colors. Well, one color, in particular: Researchers used purple lasers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to examine the probe.  Coincidentally, the purple hue of […]

The frozen surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is seen in extreme detail in this remastered photo made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. A new study suggests that the ice on Europa may move between the moon’s poles and its equator. Ice on Jupiter’s moon Europa may drift across […]

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights . Three times further away from the sun than the Earth lies an enormous lump of metal. Around 252km in diameter, the metallic “M-class” asteroid 16 Psyche is the target of NASA’s next mission to […]

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights . The last picture taken of the Mars lander Beagle 2 showed it being successfully ejected from Mars Express on Christmas Day in 2003. But sadly, we never got a signal back from the lander […]

Artist’s illustration of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft plunging into Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017. After 13 years in the Saturn system, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft had become an icon.   The probe’s data and imagery reshaped scientists’ understanding of the ringed planet and its 60-plus moons, and brought Saturn’s beauty and mystery to the masses all […]

Artist’s illustration of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft plummeting through Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017. It’s been a busy, exciting and bittersweet year in spaceflight. The private spaceflight industry made some big leaps, the Trump administration announced a familiar destination for U.S. astronauts, and a venerable NASA spacecraft that fundamentally altered our understanding of habitable worlds […]

According to director Rian Johnson, Lando Calrissian almost made an appearance in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”  – but his potential role was taken by an entirely new character instead. “Of course I’d love to see Lando,” Johnson told The Playlist . “In terms of Lando, I briefly considered — would he work in the Benicio [del […]

As millions of people on Earth celebrate Christmas with their families and friends today (Dec. 25), exchanging gifts and sharing elaborate meals, astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) will do much of the same — while floating weightlessly some 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth.  The three NASA astronauts currently aboard the ISS […]

Space Station movie night, complete with “bungee cord chairs”, drink bags, and a science fiction flick! pic.twitter.com/IPZ2thI8rw — Mark T. Vande Hei (@Astro_Sabot) December 24, 2017 It’s official: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is truly out of this world. This photo from NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei captures movie night on the International Space Station […]

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — SpaceX’s launch of a Falcon 9 rocket Friday night (Dec. 22) was by all accounts a dazzling sight (and for some, an unsettling one) in the night sky and the photos are simply spectacular . The launch, which lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, north of Los Angeles, carried […]

Streaking to Space Credit: SpaceX A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaks into space carrying 10 Iridium Next communications satellites in this long-exposure view of the launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Dec. 22, 2017. Falcon 9 Soars Over SpaceX HQ Credit: SpaceX A SpaceX Falcon rocket soars into space in this stunning […]

Orion, the Hunter, can look more like a box with a bow across the middle (Orion’s belt) to holiday-minded observers. Here, it can be seen at 8 p.m. EST Dec. 25 from New York. December is the month of the winter solstice , which a large part of mankind associates with such celebrations as Nativity […]

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched two satellites into space Friday (Dec. 22) on separate missions to study the Earth and test new ion engine technology. A JAXA H-2A rocket launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan carrying the Global Change Observation Mission-Climate (GCOM-C) satellite and the Super Low Altitude Test Satellite (SLATS). […]