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New NASA Moon Mission Aims to Solve a 40-Year-Old Mystery
Artist’s conception of NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft in orbit above the moon as dust scatters light during the lunar sunset. Click to enlarge. Image credit:...
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Comet ISON: Comet of the Century or Fanciful Fluff?
Hubble Space Telescope Image of Comet ISON, April 2013 It’s been said that in order to be noticed, you have to do something daring and bold. A comet named ISON appears to be a thrill-and-glory seeker,...
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Peeling Away the Moon’s Mysteries
Bullialdus Crater, photo by Conrad Jung, Chabot Space & Science Center Sitting on the couch in the family room the other night, my eye caught a bright light shining in through the window: the...
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NASA Robots Are Sniffing For Clues on Mars and Titan
NASA’s rover Curiosity in Gale Crater on Mars While you are sleeping, robots work tirelessly on other planets, digging, probing, analyzing, searching; painting an ever more detailed picture of worlds...
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NASA’s ‘Mohawk Guy’ on the Search for Signs of Life on Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover is still chugging along on the surface of Mars (contrary to early reports, it is still in operation despite the government shutdown). In the 14 months since it landed, the...
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Comet ISON: Celestial Popcorn That’s Ready to Pop?
Comet ISON – October 13 2013 – Chabot Space & Science Center, Photo by Conrad Jung Comet ISON has entered the inner solar system! On about October 1st, the comet that has attracted so much...
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Meteor Crashed with the Force of 600,000 Tons of TNT, Say Scientists (And...
Last February 15, at 9:20 in the morning, residents of Chelyabinsk, Russia, looked out their windows and saw a giant ball of fire fly through the sky. The Chelyabinsk meteor was a 65-foot hunk of space...
View ArticleNASA Launches its New Mars Mission
NASA’s newest Mars probe, MAVEN is now shooting through the solar system. A mere 440 million miles stand between the robotic explorer and its final destination: the Martian atmosphere. MAVEN launched...
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Silicon Valley Goes to Space
Update: On November 21st, a Russian Dnepr rocket successfully launched into orbit Skybox Imaging’s first satellite, SkySat-1. In May 2012, SpaceX became the first company to make a commercial mission...
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Cassini or Curiosity: Budget Cuts Could Force NASA to Make A Tough Choice
Curiosity Versus Cassini If you had to make a choice to shut down either the Mars rover Curiosity or that explorer of the Saturn system Cassini, how would you choose? Would you deliver a pink slip to...
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En Route to Jupiter, Juno Sends First-Ever Video of Earth and Moon
NASA’s Juno spacecraft is expected to reach Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet, in July 2016. (NASA) Twenty-four years ago, NASA’s Voyager One space probe sent back the mesmerizing image of...
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Jupiter’s Moon Has Vast Geysers, Says NASA
Artist’s concept of a giant geyser erupting from the icy surface of Europa, about 500 million miles from the sun. (NASA/ESA/K) Today in San Francisco, NASA scientists announced that Europa — one of...
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Space 2013: Another Great Year of Cosmic Adventure
Voyager 1 enters interstellar space. (NASA) Let’s take a moment to tally a few of 2013′s highlights of astronomy and space exploration. In brief, it was a very good year on a number of fronts. Curious...
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3 of the World’s Best Scientific Aircraft Team Up for Climate Science Research
BAe-146; photo courtesy FAAM Of course spacecraft and astronauts and robot rovers are sexy. So are scientific submarines and their dives to the deep seafloor. But today I want to speak up for research...
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Opposition of Jupiter: Bright Beauty in the Sky
Illustration of Jupiter from the surface of Europa. NASA/JPL The planet Jupiter is once again a source of surprise and wonder to many a night-sky-gazer, as it has been many times since before recorded...
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Rosetta Wakes Up for Final Approach to a Comet
The ESA’s Rosetta Spacecraft On Monday, far beyond the orbit of Mars, an alarm clock went off and a robot began the slow process of waking up after a long, cold sleep. The European Space Agency’s...
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NASA’s LADEE Spacecraft Sends Back New Moon Images
NASA’s LADEE Mission (that’s “LAD-ee,” not “lady,” short for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer), managed by Ames Research Center in Mountain View, has sent back its first images from the...
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Recent Observations Confirm Presence of Water Vapor on Dwarf Planet Ceres
Hubble Space Telescope image of Dwarf Planet Ceres. (NASA/Hubble Space Telescope) Recent observations of the dwarf planet Ceres by the European Herschel Space Observatory have revealed for the first...
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One Galaxy, Many Worlds: Scientists Announce ‘Planet Bonanza’
NASA has discovered hundreds of planets that orbit stars in solar systems similar to ours. (NASA) Earth is a little less lonely in the galaxy today. A NASA research team announced the discovery of 715...
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Martian Meteorite May Contain Evidence of Past Life on Mars
Micro-tunnel features in the Y000593 Martian meteorite. (NASA/JPL) Investigation of an ancient Martian meteorite has re-fueled a debate about evidence of possible past life on Mars. A team of NASA...
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