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The Most Amazing Photo Of Earth

Wednesday, September 10th 2014 12:08 AM

This photo was taken by Russia’s latest weather satellite, the Electro-L at approximately 36,000 kilometers above the equator.

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Mars or bust: the new space race to put humans on the red planet

Saturday, September 6th 2014 12:40 AM

  Two years ago tomorrow, a nuclear-powered rover, the size of an SUV and weighing almost a tonne, was lowered onto the surface of Mars. Touching down ever so gently, Nasa’s Curiosity landed with an almighty roar.  It sent a message to the world that a new space race – a race to eventually set foot on Mars – was well under way.  There are still many years, many missions, many things to try, fail and try again before Nasa completes this race. And the costs are likely to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. But the Curiosity mission represented a crucial stepping-stone towards Nasa’s eventual goal of a manned mission to Mars in 2035.  It is, however, not alone in its ambition. The last time Nasa raced to space, its rival was the former Soviet Union – a giant superpower competing for political and military superiority in the cold battlefield of space.  This time the competitors are a lot smaller but no less tenac...

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10,000 Fans Tell Lego to Make a Hubble Space Telescope Kit

Friday, September 5th 2014 04:10 AM

A fan's idea for a Lego toy to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 25th anniversary just came into greater focus.  On Sunday, Gabriel Russo's design for a model of the famous orbiting observatory topped 10,000 votes on Lego Ideas, a website where fans can share and vote for new Lego kits. Projects that get 10,000 votes of support are considered by Lego for production and sale.  The 10,000th vote for Russo's Hubble model came in just before the cutoff for Lego's fall review period, giving the Danish toy company perhaps enough time for a set to be ready for the satellite's 25th anniversary next year. [Lego and Space: A Toy Brick Photo Odyssey]  "A Lego model of [the Hubble] would come as a perfect homage to its 25th anniversary in 2015," Russo wrote as a part of his model's description on the Ideas website.  GABRIEL RUSSO / LEGO IDEAS An artist's conception shows the proposed Lego Hubble Space Telescope...

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Space Shuttle Docking On International Space Station

Thursday, September 4th 2014 01:47 AM

Sea Plankton Found Growing on the Outside of the International Space Station

Thursday, September 4th 2014 12:34 AM

This sounds like the introduction to a science fiction novel, but this is actually happening. Russian researchers claim to have discovered sea plankton clinging to the International Space Station (ISS). According to the report, the tiny life forms defy expectations, continuing to live despite intense radiation from the sun and the lack of Earth’s protective atmosphere. Russian scientists claim that these samples were retrieve from illuminator windows on the surface of the ISS. However, many researchers are turning a skeptical eye to these findings, which have yet to be confirmed by the NASA team aboard the ISS.  Possible Plankton Origins The initial reports of plankton growth and survival on the ISS is extremely surprising, given the harsh conditions the space station is exposed to. The initial reports were made by Vladimir Solovyev, the head of Russia’s ISS team. Solovyev explained that this type of plankton is typically found on the ocean’s surface. So...

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This Little Girl's Reaction To A Rocket Launch

Saturday, August 30th 2014 07:28 AM

Asteroid smash-up captured by NASA telescope

Saturday, August 30th 2014 04:38 AM

Researchers say they believe one of NASA’s space telescopes has tracked an asteroid smash-up before and after the collision for the first time.  The Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched in 2003, spotted an eruption of dust around a young star — the probable result of a collision between large asteroids.  “We think two big asteroids crashed into each other, creating a huge cloud of grains the size of very fine sand, which are now smashing themselves into smithereens and slowly leaking away from the star," said lead author Huan Meng of the University of Arizona, Tucson, in an article published Friday online in the journal Science.  While Spitzer has observed suspected asteroid smash-ups before, this marks the first time scientists have been able to collect data before and after a planetary collision. The data will help researchers understand how rocky planets, like Earth, are created.  Rocky planets start life off as dusty materi...

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A New Call To Build A Massive Alien-Seeking Space Telescope

Saturday, August 30th 2014 04:29 AM

With the Hubble Space Telescope aging and Kepler crippled, leading astronomers are mounting a new push for the construction of a telescope so huge that it may need to be constructed by astronauts in space rather than being launched aboard a single rocket.  The Advanced Technologies Large Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is a concept for a space telescope with a mirror as large as 20 meters across — nearly ten times that of Hubble’s primary mirror — that NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute and others have been developing for several years now. But the project has taken a backseat to the next generation James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to launch as soon as 2018. “The time is right for scientific and space agencies around the world, including those in the UK, to take a bold step forward and to commit to this project,” Barstow said in a statement promoting a talk scheduled for Tuesday in Portsmouth, UK that will cover ATLAST&r...

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Image: NASA's New Mega-Rocket

Saturday, August 30th 2014 04:05 AM

NASA's New Mega-Rocket for Deep Space Will Be Launch Ready by 2018

Saturday, August 30th 2014 04:01 AM

NASA new mega-rocket, a towering booster designed for deep space missions, will be ready for its first test flight no later than November 2018, space agency officials announced Wednesday (Aug. 27).  It's possible that the Space Launch System rocket test flight could launch as early as December 2017, but NASA officials have committed to having the rocket ready for flight be the end of 2018 to be safe. That extra wiggle room should let the space agency cope with scheduling and funding issues as they crop up in the future, NASA officials said in a teleconference with reporters.  The SLS will be the largest rocket ever constructed and it is designed to send humans deeper into space than ever before. The huge launcher — which will stand at 400-feet-tall (122 meters) in its final configuration — could deliver NASA astronauts to an asteroid and even Mars sometime in the future. [See images of NASA's SLS rocket design]  "Our nation is em...

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