Thomas Moynihan, University of Oxford
It is 1950 and a group of scientists are walking to lunch against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. They are about to have a conversation that will become a scientific legend. The scientists are at the Los Alamos Ranch School, the site for the Manhattan Project, where each of the group has lately played their part in ushering in the atomic age.
Continue reading The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worstIan Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of Birmingham
Half a century after humans first walked on the moon, a number of private companies and nations are planning to build permanent bases on the lunar surface. Despite the technological progress since the Apollo era, this will be extremely challenging. So how should you get started?
Continue reading How to build a moon base“Tranquility Base here. The eagle has landed.” Neil Armstrong said so as the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday, July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC.
Continue reading Descending to the Moon: scientists reconstruct what Buzz Aldrin sawTo see exactly where the spacecraft and the celestial bodies (planets and other astronomical objects) really are, right now, you can use NASA’s real-time, 3D solar system model.
Continue reading Where are the spacecraft and planets now? An amazing NASA animationJean Creighton, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Much of the technology common in daily life today originates from the drive to put a human being on the Moon. This effort reached its pinnacle when Neil Armstrong stepped off the Eagle landing module onto the lunar surface 50 years ago.
As a NASA airborne astronomy ambassador and director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Manfred Olson Planetarium, I know that the technologies behind weather forecasting, GPS and even smartphones can trace their origins to the race to the Moon.
Continue reading 5 Moon-landing innovations that changed life on EarthEven as late as 1991, we had no hard evidence of planets existing outside our solar system, known as “exoplanets”. Today, over 4000 exoplanets are known to exist. NASA has published an amazing video-map showing them in the Milky Way galaxy on the Astronomy Picture of the Day website.
Continue reading NASA has published the map of 4,000 exoplanetsThis amazing photo of the 2019 Solar Eclipse from the Moon’s orbit was taken on July 2, 2019, by the Chinese lunar satellite DSLWP-B (Longjiang-2).
Continue reading This is how a solar eclipse seen from the MoonThe historic Apollo mission control room in Houston has been fully restored by NASA for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. Now it provides a snapshot of how it looked during the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969.
Continue reading NASA has restored the historic Apollo Mission Control RoomHumanity has made great leaps when it comes to space exploration. Our efforts in understanding the Universe have been mostly successful as a result of continuous hard work and innovation. One aspect that has aided our intergalactic endeavors is Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is gaining more popularity when it comes to space exploration and could potentially provide answers to some of the Universe’s most complex questions.
Continue reading AI and Space Exploration: Paving the Way ForwardHubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, and entered service on May 20, 1990. Since then, it has observed all the planets in our Solar System, apart from Earth and Mercury. Earth is far better studied by geologists on the ground and specialized probes in orbit. Hubble can’t observe Mercury as it is too close to the Sun, whose brightness would damage the telescope’s sensitive instruments.
Here are the best images of the planets (except Earth and Mercury) and some non-planets of our Solar System through the eye of Hubble Space Telescope.
Continue reading Solar System through the eyes of Hubble Space Telescope
