Latest Space Stories
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA’s next satellite to go into space has just arrived (April 16) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft, which will launch no earlier than May 28, will be part of the agency's Small Explorer (SMEX) Mission, developed to deliver space exploration missions under $120 million. IRIS was designed and built at Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems Company Advanced...
GREENBELT, Md., April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) satellite arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Tuesday, April 16, to begin its final preparations for launch currently scheduled no earlier than May 28. IRIS will improve our understanding of how heat and energy move through the deepest levels of the sun's atmosphere, thereby increasing our ability to forecast space weather. (Logo:...
University of California, Berkeley NASA has awarded the University of California, Berkeley, up to $200 million to build a satellite to determine how Earth’s weather affects weather at the edge of space, in hopes of improving forecasts of extreme “space weather” that can disrupt global positioning satellites (GPS) and radio communications. The satellite mission, called the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON), will be designed, built and operated by scientists at UC Berkeley’s...
PALO ALTO, Calif., April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Scientists will soon gain a better view into energy and plasma movement near the surface of the sun, thanks to delivery of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. in preparation for launch. Part of NASA's Small Explorer (SMEX) Mission, which delivers space exploration missions costing less than $120 million, IRIS was designed and built at Lockheed Martin's [NYSE: LMT] Space...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Analysis of data collected by NASA’s Wind spacecraft as it traveled through the front of the Earth’s magnetosphere from 1998 through 2002 has revealed a special type of magnetic pulsations, scientists from the US space agency revealed on Tuesday. The magnetosphere, a giant area of space created by the Earth’s magnetic fields as it travels around the sun, produces a standing bow wave or bow shock as is travels through space....
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Using observations from an airborne observatory, NASA researchers have discovered new details on how massive stars form within a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. An emerging star known as G35 has been observed forming in an orderly process similar to the one undergone by smaller stars like our sun, according to the scientists’ report in the Astrophysical Journal. Lead author Yichen Zhang said the observations of G35 made with...
TASC wins $40.5 million contract to deliver cost estimating and analysis CHANTILLY, Va., April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) has awarded TASC, Inc. a $40.5 million contract to provide cost-estimating services to the Cost Estimating and Analysis Division. The five-year contract has a one-year base, two option years and two award-term years. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120730/PH48590LOGO ) "For decades, TASC...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers report in The Astrophysical Journal that they have determined the positions of over 100 of the most fertile star-forming galaxies in the early Universe. The group used the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope during their observations. This telescope can capture just as many observations of this group of galaxies in just a few hours as similar telescopes can in more than a decade. [ Video:...
WATCH VIDEO: [Swift's Christmas Burst From Blue Supergiant Star Explosion] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers unwrapped a little more of the mystery surrounding a new type of powerful cosmic explosion, creating a new theory around the death of supergiant stars. These huge explosions create powerful blasts of high energy gamma rays, known as gamma-ray bursts. These larger blasts can last for several hours, compared to most gamma-ray bursts which rarely...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of researchers, in collaboration with University of Leicester planetary scientists, has organized the largest ever observational campaign of Saturn's auroras. To expand our knowledge of the planet's northern lights, a host of space and ground-based telescopes will focus on the ringed gas giant for the month-long project. Scientists from the University's Department of Physics and Astronomy have worked with NASA...
Latest Space Reference Libraries
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...
