pale blue dot
NASA APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) published an amazing video showing a rotating Moon. In fact, no one sees the Moon rotate like this. We see only one side of the Moon because the Moon is tidally locked to Earth. But, thanks to modern digital technology combined with many detailed images returned by the Lunar …
Continue reading “Rotating Moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter”
A great short science fiction film, “Others Will Follow”, created and directed by Andrew Finch and published on Vimeo, tells the story of a crewed Mars mission. An accident occurs and the spacecraft breaks apart, the last survivor (we don’t see what happens to the rest of the crew, but presumably they have died) manages …
According to a new study, microbes like those found in Earth’s deep ocean could potentially thrive in the underground ocean of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. Both molecular hydrogen (H2) and methane (CH4) already have been detected in the plume. Researchers have shown that Methanothermococcus okinawensis, a methanogenic archaeon first isolated from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent …
Continue reading “We May Have Already Detected Signs of Alien Microbes on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus”
On February 6, 2018, SpaceX successfully tested Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket that the American company ever built. When lifted off, it became also the most powerful operational rocket in the world. Powerful rockets like Falcon Heavy may one day carry humans to the Moon or Mars. But there might be an even more important use of powerful …
Continue reading “Asteroid Mining: We Need Powerful Rockets like Falcon Heavy”
NASA’s asteroid-sampling OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured a new Earth-Moon image on Jan. 17, 2018, from a distance of 39.5 million miles (63.6 million kilometers). Spacecraft used its NavCam1 imager to take this photo, as part of an engineering test. In the image, The Earth and the moon are just two bright dots against the vastness of …
Continue reading “OSIRIS-REx Captures New Earth-Moon Image from 39.5 Million Miles”
A breathtakingly beautiful photo of a historical moment: NASA Astronaut Robert L. Stewart untethered above the Earth during the first Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) exercise. The photo was taken on February 7, 1984, during the EVA 1 (Extravehicular activity) of STS-41-B, the tenth NASA Space Shuttle mission, and the fourth flight of the Space Shuttle …
It took 27 years, but finally, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft beat Voyager 1‘s record for being farthest from Earth while capturing images. Taken on December 5, 2017, New Horizons’ image of the open star cluster NGC 3532 (also commonly known as the Football Cluster or the Wishing Well Cluster) became the farthest image ever made by any …
One of the most interesting photos in history: the entire Earth clearly reflects off the side of a… car!
This will go down as one of the greatest videos in history, and you must share it with everyone you know. It is one of the great achievements our species has ever done. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy test flight was successful and the rocket’s upper stage, together with Elon Musk’s electric sports car Tesla and the …
Spacewalking or Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut or cosmonaut outside a spacecraft beyond the Earth’s appreciable atmosphere (a moonwalk is also an EVA). The first spacewalker was the Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov. He became the first human to conduct an extra-vehicular activity (EVA) on March 18, 1965; exiting the capsule during …
