universetoday — The above video should satisfy your daily need for rocket foom. Morpheus — a NASA testbed for vertical landing systems — did two firing tests this week that produced a fair amount of the usual fire and smoke, as you can see above. You’ll actually see two separate firings in that...
planetary — The awesome LEGO Curiosity rover designed by Stephen Pakbaz is going to go into production!
universetoday — Mosaic of Saturn seen in eclipse in September 2006. Earth is the bright dot just inside the F ring at upper left. (CICLOPS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI) Citizens of Earth, get ready for your Cassini close-up: once again the spacecraft is preparing to capture images of Saturn positioned between it and the Sun, allowing for...
planetary — The European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory received its final commands yesterday, having depleted the liquid helium required to make its infrared observations.
universetoday — ISON as seen by Hubble earlier this spring. (Credit: NASA/ESA/Z. Levay/STScl). Comets are the big “question marks” of observational astronomy. Some, such as Comet Hyakutake and the Great Daylight Comet of 1910 present themselves seemingly without warning and put on memorable displays. Others, such as the infamous Comet Kohoutek or Comet Elenin,...
universetoday — Over the past six years wind speeds in Venus’ southern atmosphere have been steadily rising (ESA) High-altitude winds on neighboring Venus have long been known to be quite speedy, whipping sulfuric-acid-laden clouds around the superheated planet at speeds well over 300 km/h (180 mph). And after over six years collecting data...
universetoday — Image Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, (Univ. Wisconsin-Madison), Keck Observatory As Uranus speeds in its orbit in the solar system, there are three large space rocks that are in lockstep with the gas giant, according to new simulations. Two of them are wobbling in unstable “horseshoe” orbits near Uranus, while the third is...
universetoday — On Monday, NASA introduced eight new astronaut candidates – four women and four men – who will “help the agency push the boundaries of exploration and travel to new destinations in the solar system,” NASA said. “This is the first class in three years, and the 21st overall in...
planetary — For this evening's Planetary Radio Live event, Mat Kaplan asked me to do a presentation of some favorite space images. I told him that picking favorite space images is like picking favorite children; it's not possible because they're all my favorite. To narrow things down, I decided to explore a...
universetoday — An impressive, gorgeous, powereful supercell northwest of Booker, Texas from June 3rd, 2013. Credit and copyright: Mike Olbinski/Olbinski Photography. Photographer and storm chaser Mike Olbinski has captured some incredible storm footage over the years (such as this apocalyptic haboob in Arizona in 2011.) But his latest timelapse was something he’s been...
universetoday — Screens in ESOC’s Main Control Room on the day the last command was sent to the Herschel Space Telescope, shutting the observatory off. Credit: ESA. We knew it was coming, but it is still sad to see the end of a mission. Controllers for the Herschel space telescope sent finals...
planetary — This is extremely good news: after more than a year of analysis, the New Horizons mission and NASA have concluded and agreed that New Horizons' originally-planned trajectory past Pluto is likely safe from dust.
universetoday — A new analysis of data from the Chandra space telescope revealed 26 black hole candidates in the Andromeda Galaxy. This is the largest collection of possible black holes found in another galaxy besides that of the Milky Way, Earth’s home galaxy. Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO/R.Barnard, Z.Lee et al.), Optical (NOAO/AURA/NSF/REU Prog./B.Schoening,...
universetoday — Radar images of asteroid 1998 QE2 and its satellite on June 7. Each frame in the animation is a sum of 4 images, spaced apart by about 10 minutes. (Arecibo Observatory/NASA/Ellen Howell) On the last day of May 2013 asteroid 1998 QE2 passed relatively closely by our planet, coming within 6 million...
universetoday — A 12-photo panoramic of the Milky Way arching over Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona. Credit and copyright: Sean Parker/Sean Parker Photography. The desert provides some of the most stunning landscapes and skycapes, as evidenced by two recent astrophotos from Universe Today readers. The gorgeous lead image by Sean Parker...
universetoday — Dark lightning occurs within thunderstorms and flings gamma rays and antimatter into space. (Science@NASA video) Discovered “by accident” by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in 2010, dark lightning is a surprisingly powerful — yet invisible — by-product of thunderstorms in Earth’s atmosphere. Like regular lightning, dark lightning is the result of...
universetoday — An image of TW Hydrae and the protoplanetary stuff surrounding the star. Astronomers believe a planet is forming within the gas and dust and sweeping up debris, as shown by the gap in this picture. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Debes (STScI), H. Jang-Condell (University of Wyoming), A. Weinberger (Carnegie Institution...
planetary — Mars Express has been in flight for a decade, more than enough time to send home some amazing finds.
universetoday — The Subaru Telescope. Credit: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Put another checkmark beside the “cold dark matter” theory. New observations by Japan’s Subaru Telescope are helping astronomers get a grip on the density of dark matter, this mysterious substance that pervades the universe. We can’t see dark matter, which makes up an...
planetary — We check in with Dr. Bruce Betts, our Director of Projects, on the latest from our current programs funded by our members.
universetoday — Neil Armstrong and David Scott in the Gemini VIII capsule, after splashdown, March 16, 1966. Credit: NASA. So, you’ve just endured a harrowing experience where your orbiting spacecraft has gone wildly out of control. You somehow — while undergoing the incredible, vertigo-inducing G-forces of your spinning spacecraft —...
planetary — Part 3 of Bruce Betts' wrap up from the Planetary Defense Conference 2013 focuses on the Laser Bees (asteroid deflection method) project and Laser Bees researcher Alison Gibbings.
universetoday — Researchers with the Cosmic Flows project have been working to map both visible and dark matter densities around our Milky Way galaxy up to a distance of 300 million light-years, and they’ve now released this new video map which shows the motions of structures of the nearby Universe in greater...
universetoday — This is an image of a unique eclipse as viewed by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, with a model of the moon from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter replacing the lunar shadow. Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC You’ve probably never before seen an image like the one above. That’s because it is the first time something...
universetoday — The CRaTER instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measures the effect of cosmic rays on “human tissue-equivalent” plastic. (NASA) It could work, say researchers from the University of New Hampshire and the Southwest Research Institute. One of the inherent dangers of space travel and long-term exploration missions beyond Earth is the constant barrage...