Tag Archives | space

Relics of the Ancient Past: Q&A with Author Alastair Reynolds on 'Revenger'

Two young women join a dangerous expedition combing through the rubble left behind from countless past solar system civilizations in “Revenger ” (Orbit, 2017), the latest book by prolific science-fiction writer Alastair Reynolds. The book was released today (Feb. 28) in the United States. Although Reynolds is known for his hard science fiction and space […]

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As SpaceX Unveils Space Tourist Moon Flight, NASA Reacts

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled an ambitious plan yesterday to fly two private space tourists around the moon in 2018 . The move drew a commendation from NASA along with a clear reminder that the agency expects SpaceX to meet its other obligations while pursuing the moon. In a teleconference with reporters Monday (Feb. 27), […]

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Cloudy or Clear? Predict the Night-Sky Weather with These Handy Tips

Aaron Kingery, a scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. captured the image of Comet Pan-STARRS on the evening of Tuesday, March 12, 2013 using a Canon DSLR camera. The comet was near peak brightness as it traversed the evening sky. As a television meteorologist, I’m called upon each night to provide […]

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Images of the Sun From the GOES-16 Satellite

These images of the sun were captured at the same time on January 29, 2017 by the six channels on the Solar Ultraviolet Imager or SUVI instrument aboard NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite. Data from SUVI will provide an estimation of coronal plasma temperatures and emission measurements which are important to space weather forecasting. To source

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SpaceX to Fly Passengers On Private Trip Around the Moon in 2018

SpaceX  will fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon in 2018, the company’s founder Elon Musk announced Monday (Feb. 27). The private spaceflight company will use its Falcon Heavy rocket to send the two paying passengers into space aboard one of the company’s Dragon spacecraft . The two private citizens, who have not […]

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Rosetta Spacecraft: To Catch a Comet

An artist’s impression of the Rosetta orbiter deploying the Philae lander to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014. The Rosetta spacecraft followed a 10-year mission to catch a comet and land a probe on it. Launched in 2004, the spacecraft arrived at its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, on Aug. 6, 2014.  The mission included the Philae lander, which […]

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Colour vision

The second Sentinel-2 satellite, Sentinel-2B, is set for liftoff on 7 March. Discover more about the mission and ‘colour vision’ for Copernicus To source

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What's That On Pluto? Official Names Near for Dwarf Planet Geography

Pluto’s famous heart-shaped feature is on the road to getting an official name, nearly two years after its discovery. “Tombaugh Regio ” — nicknamed after the discoverer of Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh — is among dozens of informal names that will likely be submitted to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) under new naming themes for the […]

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Does Pluto Have The Ingredients For Life?

Reddish hues on Pluto could indicate tholins, a type of complex organic compound that may be a precursor to the chemistry of life. Pluto has long been viewed as a distant, cold and mostly dead world, but the first spacecraft to pass by it last year revealed many surprises about this distant dwarf planet. Data […]

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Nearby Comet Has a Big Heart, Radar Reveals

A series of delay-Doppler images of Comet 45P/HMP taken over 2 hours of observation. A rare opportunity to study a comet using radar technology has yielded new measurements of this traveling space rock’s size, shape, geology and rotation rate. Comets don’t often come close enough to Earth for scientists to study them with radar, but […]

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Apollo 11 Spacecraft Tags Land on 'Antiques Roadshow' for Appraisal

An archive of Apollo artifacts, including decals removed the Apollo 11 spacecraft, are appraised on Antiques Roadshow. Only a few days after the Smithsonian’s announcement of a national tour for Columbia, the historic spacecraft that flew the first men to walk on the moon, two notable artifacts from the Apollo 11 command module have turned […]

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Space, astronomy and science