Who knows what mysteries lurk at the military’s Area 51 complex in Nevada? Conspiracy theorists and UFO chasers think it’s a big alien coverup. But it’s probably something more boring, like advanced military aircraft. Let’s talk about what we know, and what we think we know about this infamous military base. (...)Read the rest of […]...
Greenland’s glaciers may contribute more to future sea level rise than once thought, despite earlier reports that their steady seaward advance is a bit slower than expected. This is just more sobering news on the current state of Earth’s ice from the same researchers that recently announced the “unstoppable” retreat of West Antarctic glaciers. (...)Read the […]...
When “nothing in our solar system can help us,” we need to “confront the reality of interstellar travel.” So says the new full trailer from the upcoming film “Interstellar.” In a word: WOW. And at nearly 7 million views so far on YouTube, this trailer is generating a lot of interest and anticipation. Even before […]...
Recently rumors have been flying that the BICEP2 results regarding the cosmic inflationary period may be invalid. It all started with a post by Dan Falkowski on his blog Resonaances, where he claimed that the BICEP2 had misinterpreted some data, which rendered their results invalid, or at least questionable. The story was then picked up by […]...
In what could become the world’s first orbiting salad bar, NASA’s Veggie experiment was initiated on May 8 after a successful (if slightly delayed) launch to the Space Station on Friday, April 18 aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. In development for several years, the LED-powered plant growth experiment is finally getting the chance to put down its roots. (...)Read the rest […]...
After eight years in orbit, Venus Express has completed routine science observations and is preparing for a daring plunge into the planet’s hostile atmosphere. ...
The rover will soon drive on toward its long-term destination, Mount Sharp. ...
Researchers have captured stunning images of Saturn’s auroras as the planet’s magnetic field is battered by charged particles from the Sun. ...
The 30 day flight of the SpaceX-3 Dragon commercial cargo freighter loaded with precious NASA science samples ended today with a spectacular departure from the orbiting lab complex soaring some 266 miles (428 km) above Earth. Update 3:05 PM EDT May 18: SpaceX confirms successful splashdown at 3:05 p.m. EDT today. “Splashdown is confirmed!! Welcome […]...
Call it a porcine occultation. It took nearly a year but I finally got help from the ornamental pig in my wife’s flower garden. This weekend it became the preferred method for blocking the sun to better see and photograph a beautiful pair of solar halos. We often associate solar and lunar halos with winter […]...
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Boeing expects to begin “assembly operations of our commercial CST-100 manned capsule soon at the Kennedy Space Center,” Chris Ferguson, commander of NASA’s final shuttle flight and now director of Boeing’s Crew and Mission Operations told Universe Today in an exclusive one-on-one interview about Boeing’s space efforts. In part 1, […]...
The Gemini Planet Imager revealed important details of the orbit of Beta Pictoris b and its relationship to a nearby asteroid belt. ...
Recent observations confirm that the Great Red Spot now is approximately 10,250 miles across. ...
Venus is definitely not a friendly planet for humanity. Soviet landers that arrived on the surface a few decades back were crushed pretty quickly. Its surface temperature is more than 842 degrees Fahrenheit (450 degrees Celsius) and the atmosphere is full of noxious gases. But descending into this pressure-filled cooker is exactly what Venus Express […]...
About nine minutes after launching towards space, a Russian Proton rocket reportedly crashed Friday (May 16), destroying an advanced satellite being carried on board. The incident happened about 540 seconds after liftoff, after the events of the video shown above. Russian news site RT (among others) reported that the rocket and Express-AM4R mainly burned up in […]...
After several months with their telescope on the sidelines, the Kepler space telescope team has happy news to report: the exoplanet hunter is going to do a new mission that will compensate for the failure that stopped its original work. (...)Read the rest of Kepler Space Telescope Gets A New Exoplanet-Hunting Mission (279 words) […]...
“Constrained budget conditions” have prompted NASA to not approve a funding extension for the 11-year-old Spitzer Space Telescope after fiscal 2015, but Spitzer officials emphasized that doesn’t necessarily mean the mission is terminated. (...)Read the rest of Spitzer Mission Extension Not Approved In NASA Senior Review; Officials Say Budget Rewrite Possible (583 words) Elizabeth...
“I’ve been wanting to get one of these for ages!” said astrophotographer Roger Hutchinson from London, England. This awesome image of the International Space Station transiting across the Sun earlier today — which creates a “zipper”-like effect on the Sun’s surface – is a composite of 46 images, taken from Southwest SW London on May […]...
We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Google , Universe Today, or the Universe Today YouTube page. susie for Universe Today, 2014. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh...
A repurposed spacecraft may be put out to pasture in the coming years following the results of a NASA Senior Review, released Friday (May 16). The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which is now in the midst of a three-year NEOWISE mission searching for potentially hazardous asteroids, has not been approved for another mission extension called MaxWISE. […]...