Latest Space Stories
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Currently, if scientists want to study meteorites that had originated from the red planet, they have to rely upon celestial travelers that arrived on this planet so long ago they now possess characteristics that tell of their time on Earth. This masks most clues that might offer information about the meteorites' time on Mars. However, a team of scientists has examined a meteorite that formed on Mars more than a billion years ago in...
WATCH VIDEOS: [Panning Across NGC 6559] | [Zooming In On NGC 6559] John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The Danish 1.54-metre telescope located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has released a new image of the star-forming region NGC 6559. Located relatively nearby, a mere 5000 light-years from Earth, NGC 6559 is found in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The nebula is only a few light years across, a stark contrast to its more well-known...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online One challenge of ground-based optical astronomy is that photons in this regime, and nearby infrared and ultraviolet bands, get refracted in our atmosphere. The consequence is that imaging of astronomical objects can be blurred, making it difficult to identify and characterize individual objects. Compensating for these effects can be tricky though, as our atmosphere is not a static system. Rather, it is in a state of...
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An asteroid that will be explored by a NASA spacecraft has a new name, thanks to a third-grade student in North Carolina. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) NASA's Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will visit the asteroid now called Bennu, named after an important ancient Egyptian avian deity. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to launch in...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A detailed study of an enormous cloud of hot gas that envelops two large, colliding galaxies has been made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This oversized gas reservoir contains as much mass as 10 billion Suns, is 300,000 light years across, and radiates more than 7 million degrees Kelvin. Scientists call this sort of cloud a “halo.” This particular halo is located in the system designated NGC 6240, which astronomers...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The newest addition to our planet-hunting arsenal, the HARPS spectrograph, has characterized two new worlds. Planets KOI-200 b and KOI-889 b are Jupiter-like planets that orbit very close to their host stars. With periods of less than 10 days, the so-called “Hot Jupiters” were originally detected using NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. This instrument has documented more than 800 new exoplanets, with thousands more potential...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel observatory has officially run out of liquid coolant, ending its mission. The space observatory launched nearly four years ago with a goal to help reveal some of the cooler sides of the universe, including planet, star and galaxy formation. "Herschel gave us the opportunity to peer into the dark and cold regions of the universe that are invisible to other telescopes," said John Grunsfel,...
WASHINGTON, April 29, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of...
NASA A NASA-funded sounding rocket mission will launch from an atoll in the Pacific in the next few weeks to help scientists better understand and predict the electrical storms in Earth's upper atmosphere. These storms can interfere with satellite communication and global positioning signals. The mission, called EVEX, for the Equatorial Vortex Experiment, will launch two rockets for a twelve-minute journey through the equatorial ionosphere above the South Pacific. The launch window for...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online One commonly used method in astronomy is to study spectra and light curves from stars and compare the data to known values, allowing researchers to derive information such as chemical composition, size, and surface temperature. The trouble with this method is it only works on stars that are bright enough or close enough to study in detail. Unfortunately, this precludes nearly three-quarters of the stellar population, which...
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The prominent feature that allows for the existence of life on Earth is the Sun. Radiation from our closest star provides heat and energy to our planet, driving biological processes and providing the necessary conditions for liquid water to naturally exist. But our Sun is only but one star in this vast Universe. And as it turns out, most stars are quite different than the one that illuminates our day. For this reason, scientists have, for hundreds of years, attempted to study the other...
Image Caption: Artistic concept of a planetary system. Credit: Wikipedia/NASA/JPL-Caltech The term Astronomy encompasses a broad range of topics, including the study of stars, galaxies, and planets. In order to focus on the different areas of study, many subfields of astronomy emerge. One such area is the study of planets known, appropriately, as Planetary Astronomy. Observational Planetary Astronomy Even within the field of Planetary Astronomy, there are several divisions to...
Ad Astra is a quarterly-published journal of the National Space Society (NSS). The name “ad astra” means “to the stars.” The journal was established following the merger of the L5 Society and the National Space Institute, which formed the NSS in 1987. The NSS is a non-profit aerospace advocacy and educational institution based in Washington DC. On November 28, 2007, the NSS announced MM Publishing Inc. as the newest publisher of Ad Astra. MM Publishing officially took on the role...
Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on October 22, 1992 at 1:09 PM EDT and landed at Kennedy on November 1 at 9:05 AM EST. The shuttle orbited 159 times at an altitude of 163 nautical miles at an inclination of 28.45 degrees and travelled 4.1 million miles. The mission lasted 9 days, 20 hours, 56 minutes, and 13 seconds. The mission launched several satellites for international partners. The primary mission objectives were the deployment of the Laser Geodynamic Satellite II...
Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 25,1992 at 12:23 PM EDT and landed at Kennedy on July 9 at 7:42 AM EDT. The shuttle orbited 221 times at an altitude of 160 nautical miles at an inclination of 28.45 degrees and travelled 5.8 million miles. The mission lasted 13 days, 19 hours, 30 minutes, and 4 seconds. This was the longest mission to date, close to 14 days. The mission's primary purpose was to study the effects of microgravity on humans. The primary payload was the...
![Two Views of Titan\](/media/gallery/cassinihuygens-mission/thumbs/thumbs_img004814-br500.jpg "Two Views of Titan\")
