A summary of the week in space in a minute. This week it was the return of Expedition 55 from the International Space Station, a meteorite puts on a display over Botswana and SOFIA arrives in New Zealand.
World space news and astronomy outreach through (Milky Way) Kiwi eyes.
Category: Space News
Failed Supernovae
Stellar evolution is a fascinating topic and what happens in the last phases of a star’s life is mind boggling. Some stars are so big that their collapsing core turns straight into a black hole that suppresses the supernova.
Space and Science Festival 2018, Wellington.
The 2018 Space and Science Festival, held at Onslow College in Wellington was fantastic, with great talks from NASA and Rocket Lab and plenty of interesting displays.
Current missions on or around Mars
This short video has a look at the current missions that are either on Mars or whizzing around it.
The week in space in one minute
A wrap up of interesting space related news over the last week.
ESA’s Gaia satellite, the release of 1.7 billion star positions
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the second batch of data collected by the Gaia satellite revealing the positions of around 1.7 billion stars.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – TESS
TESS was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX on 18 April. The satellite will survey the whole sky to look for exoplanets that transit their stars.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe – Journey to the Sun’s Corona
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is set for launch on 31 July to begin it’s journey to the Sun’s corona to help us understand more about the solar wind and why the corona is so hot.
Tiangong-1 demise, 1 April, no 1 April joke
The Chinese Tiangong-1 space station is predicted to conduct an uncontrolled re-entry sometime during 1 April 2018, NZ time.
Living off space – asteroid mining
Asteroid mining is seen as a lucrative source of income and, on the surface, it appears to be a way of accessing almost limitless resources. It’s not that simple though, it’s difficult, expensive and at the edge of our technological ability. But it won’t be that way forever.
BFR, SLS, KRK and Long March 9 and probably in that order
The US has two options for getting to Mars within the next decade and a half with the ambitious plans from SpaceX and the more risk adverse plans of NASA. Both Russia and China also have some plans for Mars and have design work underway to build large rockets to support missions to Mars and to the Moon.
Europa Clipper is looking a bit more secure, yay for astrobiology
It looks like NASA is going to get a good amount of funding in a bill set to fly through the US Congress and Senate. This is great news for programmes such as Europa Clipper that have dependencies on the SLS programme.
NASA and the Space Launch System and Mars, eventually
NASA’s plans to get to Mars are a bit slower than Elon Musk’s. They have many more steps and have plans to achieve some quite impressive things such as space station orbiting the Moon and capturing an asteroid.
Humanity’s humanity star
The Humanity Star that was launched by Rocket Lab is expected to burn up tomorrow as it re-enters the atmosphere.
Observing the Moon, the best stuff to look at
As part of Moon week it’s a good opportunity to have a look at some of the most amazing features to observe on the Moon, so get your telescopes ready and have a look at these.
The chronicles of the Head Cheese: Who owns the Moon?
The question of who owns the Moon has always been an interesting topic. Fortunately we have a treaty system to say that no one can own the Moon – but before this there were some very interesting and somewhat crazy claimants.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been whizzing around the Moon since 2009 collecting loads and loads of data that is going to be very useful for when humans return to the lunar surface.
The early Moon missions
This article looks at some of the earlier mission to the Moon including some of the missions from the Luna and Ranger programmes of the Soviet Union and the United States.
It’s Moon week, according to us
The Moon has been with us for quite a while and Milky-Way.kiwi is going to celebrate our long term companion by declaring this Moon Week.
India’s Mars mission – Mars Orbiter Mission
India launched its first interplanetary mission in 2013, sending the Mars Orbiter Mission to Mars to have a look at the planet’s surface and atmosphere.
How we are understanding more about the stuff surrounding stars
We are getting a better and better at understanding how planetary systems are formed. This article tracks the historic development of the heliocentric model and how that relates to understanding the formation of our own Solar System.
