Space nerds and science fiction fans, rejoice! Some of the craters, mountains, and other features of Pluto’s largest moon Charon just got official names, and they’re nerdy as hell.
From a mountain named after Stanley Kubrick to a crater named f…
Category: Space Exploration
A distant galaxy doesn’t seem to contain any dark matter, and that’s really weird
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Billions of years ago, our Milky Way galaxy pulled itself together.
Our home condensed from gas that gathered in our small part of the universe, swirled together thanks to gravity provided by dark matter — the mysterious substance that makes up 85 percent of matter in the universe and doesn’t interact with regular matter.
That dark matter allowed the Milky Way’s gas — i.e. the “normal” matter — of our galaxy to condense and form stars.
Researchers have thought for some time that, for the most part, galaxies need to form with the help of dark matter because of the extra gravity the mysterious, plentiful substances provides. Read more…
More about Space, Science, Astronomy, Space Exploration, and Dark Matter
There’s a storm dying on Neptune, and it probably smells like rotten eggs
A darkly colored storm on Neptune that’s the diameter of the Atlantic Ocean is shrinking.
The Hubble Space Telescope first spotted the dying storm in 2015 and has kept an eye on it over the past few years. The most recent photos from the Hubble…
Astronomers really hate that bright disco ball satellite secretly launched to space
On Thursday, the rocket company Rocket Lab announced that it had secretly launched the Humanity Star, a satellite in the shape of a reflective sphere that effectively works as a disco ball and could at times become the brightest object in the night s…
View More Astronomers really hate that bright disco ball satellite secretly launched to spaceA satellite secretly launched by a little rocket is expected to be ‘the brightest thing in the night sky’
This was unexpected.
On Wednesday, the New Zealand rocket company Rocket Lab announced that it launched a secret satellite to space aboard the test flight of its Electron rocket over the weekend.
That satellite, known as the Humanity Star…
A $30 million, Google-funded race to the moon has ended without a winner
After 10 years and numerous delays and extensions, the Google Lunar XPrize is will end without a winner.
No one will claim the $20 million grand prize that was expected to go to the first participating private company to land a spacecraft on th…
Here’s how NASA is preparing the largest telescope ever built for space
Watch NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope getting prepared for its 2019 launch. The telescope has now successfully passed all the necessary tests which ensured that it’s going to withstand the “rigors of launch” as well as the extremely cold temperature…
View More Here’s how NASA is preparing the largest telescope ever built for spaceNASA mission finalists would take us to Saturn’s moon or a comet
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If you had your pick, where in the solar system would you send a spacecraft? To an asteroid? Venus? Maybe one of Saturn’s icy moons?
Well, NASA has some ideas about where it wants to go next.
The space agency just announced the two finalists for one of its next big missions out into the solar system, and there are two destinations in mind: a comet or Titan, Saturn’s weird, icy moon.
“These are tantalizing investigations that seek to answer some of the biggest questions in our solar system today,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement. Read more…
More about Space, Nasa, Science, Comets, and Space Exploration
View More NASA mission finalists would take us to Saturn’s moon or a cometThat interstellar asteroid probably isn’t aliens, but the hunt continues
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Well, it should come as no surprise, but the interstellar asteroid astronomers discovered in October doesn’t appear to be a piece of alien technology.
According to initial observations made by a radio telescope on Wednesday, the asteroid, named ‘Oumuamua, doesn’t appear to have any obvious “artificial signals” coming from it.
But the hunt isn’t over yet.
SEE ALSO: A group of scientists will listen for alien signals coming from that interstellar asteroid
Researchers still have to comb through a fair bit of the data gathered by the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to see if there might be some sign of alien technology to be found. However, it’s not exactly looking promising. Read more…
More about Space, Science, Astronomy, Space Exploration, and Interstellar Asteroid
Trump wants to send astronauts to the Moon on the way to Mars
The Trump administration had previously signaled its intentions to send astronauts back to the Moon, but now that renewed space exploration objective is official. On Monday, the president signed Space Policy Directive 1, a document detailing a sh…
View More Trump wants to send astronauts to the Moon on the way to MarsFar-flung Voyager 1 thrusters come to life after almost 40 years of disuse
Billions of miles from Earth, at the edge of interstellar space, a long-dormant part of a far-flung spacecraft came to life this week.
After 37 years of disuse, a set of thrusters aboard Voyager 1 activated on Wednesday, firing up humanity’s fa…
The supermoon ain’t all it’s cracked up to be
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Have you heard? The supermoon is coming. Yes, that’s right. On December 3, the first and last supermoon of 2017 will rise around the world.
And if the media circus surrounding the supermoon is to be believed, it will be an astounding cosmic show that you can’t miss. The moon! It’s going to be super! You have to see it!
Well, I’m here to burst your supermoon bubble.
SEE ALSO: Is Jupiter Earth’s Friend or Foe?
Here’s the deal: It’s literally just a full moon. You know what a full moon looks like? Yeah, the supermoon looks like that.
Supermoons — which is a term first coined by an astrologer — occur because the moon’s orbit around the Earth isn’t exactly circular. When the moon reaches its closest point in orbit during the full phase, that’s what has become popularly known as a supermoon. Read more…
More about Space, Science, Skywatching, Space Exploration, and Supermoon