Fifty-five years ago this month (Feb. 20, 1962), John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. At that time, there was a space race starting up between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the Soviet Union racking up several firsts in a short time. This included the first satellite (Sputnik, 1957) […]
Tag Archives | space
The Andromeda Galaxy Could Be Buzzing With Dark Matter
The gamma-ray excess (shown in yellow-white) at the heart of M31 hints at unexpected goings-on in the galaxy’s central region. There’s something peculiar going on in the core of Andromeda, the Milky Way galaxy’s nearby cousin. Using NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Observatory, astronomers have been able to detect a powerful source of gamma-ray radiation emanating […]
Sounding Rocket Launches to Study Auroras
A NASA Black Brant IX sounding rocket soars skyward into an aurora over Alaska following a 5:13 a.m. EST, Feb. 22, 2017 launch from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. The rocket carried an Ionospheric Structuring: In Situ and Groundbased Low Altitude StudieS (ISINGLASS) instrumented payload examining the structure of an aurora. To source
Russia Launches Robotic Progress 66 Cargo Ship to Space Station
A Russian Soyuz rocket launches the automated Progress 66 cargo ship toward the International Space Station from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on Feb. 22, 2017. The spacecraft is carrying 3 tons of supplies for the space station crew. The Russian space agency Roscosmos launched a robotic cargo ship early Wednesday (Feb. 22) on a mission to […]
MetOp's trial by vacuum
Technology image of the week: Europe’s latest weather satellite lowered into a giant vacuum chamber for space testing To source
SpaceX Dragon Capsule Aborts Cargo Delivery to Space Station
This view of a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship as seen from the International Space Station is a NASA file photo from a July 2016 mission. On Feb. 22, 2017, a Dragon capsule aborted its approach to the station due a navigation software issue. A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship packed with nearly three tons of supplies […]
Searching for Life on 7 Nearby Alien Worlds: How Scientists Will Do It
The hunt for signs of life on seven nearby exoplanets will likely begin just a few years from now. An international research team announced today (Feb. 22) that seven roughly Earth-size alien worlds orbit the small, dim star TRAPPIST-1, which lies just 39 light-years from Earth. (For perspective: Our Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light-years wide. […]
Will Pluto Get Its Planethood Back?
Pluto as seen by NASA’s New Horizons probe during its epic flyby of the faraway world in July 2015. Advocates of Pluto’s planethood are about to fire another salvo in the decade-long debate about the famous object’s status. Scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission , which performed the first-ever flyby of Pluto in July 2015, […]
Major Discovery! 7 Earth-Size Alien Planets Circle Nearby Star
Astronomers have never seen anything like this before: Seven Earth-size alien worlds orbit the same tiny, dim star, and all of them may be capable of supporting life as we know it, a new study reports. “Looking for life elsewhere , this system is probably our best bet as of today,” study co-author Brice-Olivier Demory, […]
[Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)] Finding the cause of a bow-shaped feature on Venus: Observations by the Venus Climate Orbiter "Akatsuki" and analysis of numerical simulations
Feb 17, 2017 In December 2015, the longwave-infrared (LIR) camera mounted on the Venus Climate Orbiter “Akatsuki” discovered a bow-shaped feature stretching about 10,000 km in a north-south direction. This pattern remained in nearly the same place over the observation period of four days, without being affected by the easterly wind (super-rotation) in the Venus […]
[Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)] "Hisaki" Revealed the Effects of the Solar Wind Extend to within the Jovian Magnetosphere
Feb 22, 2017 Observations by “Hisaki”, the Extreme ultraviolet spectroscope for Exospheric Dynamics mission, showed that the effects of the solar wind extend to within the Jovian magnetosphere, the strongest in the solar system. This research result overturns the conventional idea the solar wind cannot reach near Jupiter, which is strongly protected by its powerful […]
Monitoring Snow Changes: NASA Scientist Dalia Kirschbaum Explains | Video
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Search For Alien Life – Exploring Saturn's Moon Enceladus Has Major Impact | Video
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