The Kuiper Belt’s Ultima Thule and the New Horizons Flypast on New Years Day
Hot on the heals of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 trip to the Moon we have the real time fly past of Ultima
Hot on the heals of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 trip to the Moon we have the real time fly past of Ultima
BepiColombo is due to launch on Saturday on an Ariane 5 rocket. The mission will get to Mercury in 2025 helping us learn a lot more about the planet that is the closest to the Sun.
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has developed a glitch and gone into safe mode. The 19 year old spacecraft is well past it’s design life but continues to produce incredible science so hopefully it’ll be back to full serviceability very soon.
The aborted launch of the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft with Expedition 57 to the International Space Station reminded the world that space flight can still be dangerous. Fortunately both Nick Hague and Alexey Ovchinin return safely to the surface of the Earth.
The amount of interstellar particles being detected by Voyager 2 may indicate that the spacecraft is about to pass through the heliopause into interstellar space.
The Hubble Space Telescope is currently in safe mode while technicians at NASA figure out what has gone wrong with a gyroscope that was found to be not performing properly. Hopefully it’s an easy fix and Hubble will be back to full operations soon.
Orbital ATK is one of the commercial providers of transport services to the International Space Station (ISS) with its Cygnus spacecraft.
The Japanese and Russia are the only non-US nations currently routinely sending cargo to the ISS. ESA did a few missions with the ATV.
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.
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.
The Chinese Tiangong-1 space station is predicted to conduct an uncontrolled re-entry sometime during 1 April 2018, NZ time.
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.
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.
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.
The discovery of hydrogen in the plumes shooting out of Enceladus got everyone excited that the conditions might be right for life inside the icy moon. Now a lab experiment confirms that life could really be possible in those conditions likely to be found on Enceladus.
Life needs CHNOPS, the six essential elements Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, and Sulphur. Curiosity found them on ancient Mars, but a new study shows Earth was born without them. Only a lucky impact with Theia made our world habitable. In contrast, Venus never stood a chance. Meet the three planetary siblings and discover why only Earth became a cradle for life.
Mars’s mantle contains ancient fragments up to 4km wide from its formation—preserved like geological fossils from the planet’s violent early history.
Cosmic rays are hitting the atmosphere constantly. One of the products of the collisions is muons, and we can detect muons on the surface of the Earth to learn about the cosmic rays.
NGC6025 is an beautiful open cluster close to Beta Trianguli Australis in Triangulum Australe. Visible with binoculars and great in a telescope, well worth a look.
You must be logged in to post a comment.