Aerospace

What Is The Source Of A Mysterious Radio Burst?

Researchers using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico discovered a split-second burst of radio waves, the first time that a so-called "fast radio burst" has been detected using an instrument other than the Parkes radio telescope in Austra ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 10 2014 - 1:02pm

7 Dwarf Galaxies Found By Frankenscope

A new type of telescope made by stitching together telephoto lenses recently discovered seven celestial surprises while probing a nearby spiral galaxy - previously undetected dwarf galaxies.   Pieter van Dokkum, chair of Yale's astronomy department, ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 10 2014 - 6:17pm

GOES-R Magnetometer Ready For Integration

The Magnetometer instrument that will fly on NOAA's GOES-R satellite when it is launched in early 2016 has completed the development and testing phase and is ready to be integrated with the spacecraft.  The GOES-R series will be more advanced than th ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 16 2014 - 4:30am

After Unconventional Launch, ESA Spaceplane Gets Ready For Reentry

ESA’s spaceplane is getting ready to showcase reentry technologies. Instead of heading north into a polar orbit, as on previous flights, Vega will head eastwards to release the spaceplane into a suborbital path reaching all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Fi ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 15 2014 - 7:08pm

Has Voyager 1 Really Left The Solar System?

Where does the solar system end and interstellar space begin? There are no 'Now Leaving...' signs so it's somewhat subjective. If you think the argument over Pluto was confusing, you'll be intrigued that the argument over the solar sys ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 23 2014 - 11:09am

After Cloud Surfing Venus, Express Is Running Out Of Gas

The Venus Express spacecraft just spent a month of aerobraking that saw it surf in and out of the atmosphere of Venus at altitudes typically between 131 km and 135 km for a couple of minutes on each of its closest approaches to the planet. Why? Because aft ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 28 2014 - 11:31am

Investigating Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Cosmic-Ray Technology

Soil moisture plays a major role in the environment/climate system because the transport of water within the land and at the land-atmosphere interface is strongly dependent on the state of soil water in a region. Despite its importance, lack of soil moistu ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 17 2014 - 6:30am

Though It's The 11th Cyclone This Season, Karina Is A Giant 9 From Space

Tropical Storm Karina was weakening on August 20 when NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard Terra snapped a visible image of Tropical Storm Karina on August 20 at 19:40 UT ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 21 2014 - 10:56am

Sending Humans To Mars A Principle Of Space Exploration, Says Former NASA Director

Let’s say it straight. Mars is, without any doubt our next step in space exploration, sparking our imagination for many years in spaceflight history. After sending tons of scientific rovers, it’s about time to send human pioneers to start colonizing the Re ...

Article - Tomasz Nowakowski - Jan 4 2015 - 1:00pm

Philae: Rosetta Lander Will Seek A Close Encounter With Comet 67P’s ‘Primordial Soup’

Artistic rendering of Philae on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Credit: ESA/ATG, CC BY By Ian Wright, The Open University ...

Article - The Conversation - Aug 30 2014 - 11:30am