Category: Space

Business Space

Virgin Galactic tests new thrusters, further disregards gravity (video)

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As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA Last year, Sir Richard Branson promised Virgin Galactic’s first commercial mission would rip through the atmosphere in 2014. That goal has edged ever closer with SpaceShipTwo’s latest trip beyond the sound barrier, where it shot past previous records and hit an altitude of 71,000 feet. This recent dry-run was the maiden voyage for a set of newly designed thrusters (used to keep the vessel on-course in space), and a new coating for the…

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Photography Space

Gemini Planet Imager photographs alien worlds in just a minute

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Although it has been possible to take direct photos of exoplanets for a few years, the technology involved has been low-resolution and slow — it can take up to an hour to get a crude shot of a dimly-lit world. It’s much easier with the recently launched Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), though. Scientists have released early images from the Chile-based instrument that took a mere minute to capture, and reveal more detail than…

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Space

$19 million might produce the first ever image of a black hole

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As reported on The Verge. By Rich McCormick Astrophysicists think there’s a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It’s supposed to be four million times more massive than our Sun, but despite its stupendous size, we’ve never been able to see it. That might soon change. The European Research Council has given 14 million euros ($19.3 million) to the creators of BlackHoleCam, a project that will use radio telescopes and supercomputers to try to…

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Space

Water on the red planet: more findings point to flowing liquid on Mars

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As reported on The Verge. By Alexander Thompson Is water seeping out of Martian soil? Dark streaks in images from Mars, seen above, suggest flowing water. (NASA) During spring months on Earth, the ground thaws and new life abounds. On Mars, scientists have observed activity of a different sort — water that seems to bleed from the ground.   Mars is thought to have been much wetter in the past with oceans, rivers, and even lakes that could…

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Space

NASA unveils plans to bring Kepler space telescope back to life in search for new planets

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As reported on The Verge. By Kwame Opam The Kepler space telescope may have life left in it yet. Back in August, NASA elected to abandon attempts to repair the spacecraft after two of its gyroscope-like reaction wheels failed. Without at least three wheels working to stabilize the craft in orbit, it was left unable to precisely pinpoint exoplanets in distant solar systems. After making a call for new proposals on how to extend Kepler’s mission, NASA is…

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Space

MAVEN takes off: what you need to know about NASA’s new mission to Mars

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As reported on The Verge. By Alexander Thompson The latest venture to the red planet will investigate Mars’ mysterious atmosphere The idea of humans one day colonizing Mars is a tantalizing one, but there are some obvious obstacles to our long-term residency on the red planet. Chief among them? The absence of water. Research has established that Mars used to have liquid water on its surface, but now it’s a dry, dusty, inhospitable desert. Today, NASA will launch…

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Science Space

NASA shoots lasers at the moon, sets new data transmission record

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As reported on Engadget. By Melissa Grey Lasers are indisputably awesome, and NASA just made them a little more so by zapping a record-breaking 622 Mb of data per second between the moon and earth as a part of its Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD). Pulsed laser beams were shot from ground control at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico to the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) satellite orbiting the moon, and the results could herald…

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Engineering Space Tech

NASA’s tiny glowing plane shows the future of flight in fluorescent oil

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As reported on The Verge. By Rich McCormick NASA built a toy-sized model of a hybrid wing plane, coated it in fluorescent oil, and put it in an ultra-fast wind tunnel. Why? Because it’s a federally funded center housing some of the world’s brightest minds, and that’s the kind of thing it gets to do. This image shows a 5.8 percent scale model of one of NASA’s plane prototypes coated with a glow-in-the-dark liquid before being blasted…

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Science Space

Alt-week 09.15.13: Record-breaking glass, nature’s gears, and Hubble’s huge find

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As reported on Engadget. By Joe Pollicino Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days. This week’s alternative roundup focuses on exploration, experimentation and discovery — both on land and in space. Here on Earth, Cornell’s stumbled upon a new glass that breaks records and researchers in Europe have discovered an insect with cob wheel-styled gear joints for movement. Meanwhile, above our atmosphere, NASA’s Hubble telescope made…

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Space

10 Years of Mesmerizing Photos From NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope

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As reported on Wired. BY NADIA DRAKE For 10 years, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has been helping scientists on Earth learn more about the mysterious objects hiding in our star-studded skies. On August 25, 2003, the telescope — carrying a relatively small, 0.85-meter beryllium mirror — launched from Cape Canaveral, FL. Since then, it’s been trailing the Earth on its orbit around the sun, like NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. Spitzer stares at the heavens in infrared wavelengths, revealing the cold, distant,…

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