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.
Last month, the New Zealand Government – The New Zealand Space Agency together with the US Embassy have announced four scholarships at NASA Ames, the same place I have been in 2014. There were media outlets in New Zealand that publicised this as an astronaut training opportunity, but this internship is no astronaut training school although it might lead to becoming one. This, and the knowledge that you don’t need to be an astronaut to work in the space industry, prompted me to want to share from my experience at NASA and give an overview of what to realistically expect from these internships.
The game changer for access to space will be humanity moving away from the use of chemical rockets to get into orbit. The disrupters to the space industry will be the ones that perfect the alternative technologies.
Hayabusa2 is about to have a close up and personal experience with the asteroid Ryugu. In this mission the spacecraft will collect a bit of the asteroid and return to Earth.
New Horizons will make its next encounter on 1 January next year as it approaches the Kuiper Belt Object Ultima Thule, formerly known as 2014 MU69.
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 launched Juno to look at Jupiter in 2011 and since 2016 it has been sending back fantastic images of the Solar System’s biggest planet.
Space exploration drives a lot of technological development that has spinoffs for Earth-bound applications.
In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet Union and the United States launched a number of spacecraft to Venus that greatly increased our understanding of Earth’s twin.
Supernovae cause the biggest explosions in the universe, often out shining their host galaxies. There’s plenty of flavours of supernova and they aren’t all just big stars blowing up.
Magnetars are a fascinating type of object that are really mind boggling. These incredibly powerful star remnants are worth giving a closer look.
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.
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