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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
This article explores what the Moon is made of – not cheese, in case you were wondering. The complex nature of its composition is quite amazing, as is its similarity to the Earth’s chemical makeup.
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.
The European Space Agency launched the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2016 and it is nearly in its target orbit around Mars and will soon begin is mission of looking for evidence of past life.
The Mars InSight lander is due to launch in a couple of months and this article briefly covers what this mission is all about.
Kiwinauts to space is how we are going to try and inspire New Zealand to become a space faring nation and get a New Zealander into space – the first kiwinaut.
This article looks at the events that led to the creation of NASA from the context of exploring the role of a national space agency.
With all the talk of going back to the moon, we thought it’d be good to recap on who is doing what in the coming years about returning to the Moon.
I was watching youtubes of Saturn V and Space Shuttle launches the other day and was wondering how they manage to get all of the rocket engines firing at the same time so the rockets don’t fall over.
With the US President’s recent signing of the new US space policy it timely to catch up on how NASA is progressing with the Space Launch System
Donald Trump signed a directive to refocus US space policy on returning to the Moon then to Mars and beyond.
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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