On April 5, 2018, the first powered flight test of VSS Unity, the suborbital (see notes 1) rocket-powered crewed spaceplane (see notes 2) of Virgin Galactic, took place. The American spaceflight company published the highlights video of the event on its YouTube channel.
Category Archives: Space Exploration
Why You Shouldn’t Worry About the Uncontrolled Reentry of Tiangong-1 [China’s Falling Space Station]
Tiangong-1, China’s falling space station will make an uncontrolled re-entry on late Sunday, April 1, or early Monday, April 2. But, there’s no need to panic: the risk is quite low that people on Earth will be in danger. Since two-thirds of Earth’s surface is covered by water, any remaining debris that doesn’t burn up …
Mars Curiosity Rover Celebrates Sol 2,000
This week, NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover celebrated its 2,000th Martian day (or Sol) on the Red Planet. The nuclear-powered rover was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, and landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012. A Mars day is slightly longer than a day here on Earth: …
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“One Strange Rock” Trailer
We live on a strange rock… and nobody realizes that better than astronauts. A new documentary, including astronaut experiences of looking down at Earth from space, is coming to National Geographic Channel soon. The award-winning American filmmaker and writer Darren Aronofsky, the American actor, producer, rapper, comedian, and songwriter Will Smith, and experienced astronauts join …
Exoplanet Travel Bureau by NASA [Interactive 3D Images]
Will we ever visit other stars? Maybe, in the distant future, if humans won’t become extinct, our grand grand grand … (insert a hundred or a thousand “grand” here) children can stand on an exoplanet’s surface someday. But, we don’t have to wait. NASA has opened a new web page, an “Exoplanet Travel Bureau”, and we can, …
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Rotating Moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
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 …
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Others Will Follow [Short Sci-Fi Film]
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 …
We May Have Already Detected Signs of Alien Microbes on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
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 …
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Asteroid Mining: We Need Powerful Rockets like Falcon Heavy
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 …
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OSIRIS-REx Captures New Earth-Moon Image from 39.5 Million Miles
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 …
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