The Best of the Year in Space
It’s been a big year for the space sciences. The first privately-held spacecraft orbited our world, the blackest material in history was created, researchers expanded the list of possible sources of life threefold; and that was just in December. 1. Hubble Detects Mysterious Spaceship-Shaped Object Traveling at 11,000MPH – February 2nd Hubble has discovered a…
Newly Discovered Molecule Will Make Rocket Fuel Super Efficient
Swedish scientists have just discovered a new molecule—one that has the potential of boosting future rocket fuel efficiency by 20 to 30% compared to the best fuels around today. The discovery was made at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. The molecule is called trinitramid—chemical formula N(NO2)3. It’s the largest nitrogen-oxygen molecule so far,…
NASA Engineers Propose Combining a Rail Gun and a Scramjet to Fire Spacecraft Into Orbit
NASA has been working on creating a new, cheaper method to launch spacecrafts. Their latest proposal involves train tracks, a rail gun and a scramjet. Here’s what they’re trying to do: In April, President Obama urged NASA to come up with, among other things, a less expensive method than conventional rocketry for launching spacecraft. By…
The Moon As You’ve Never Seen It Before
This “illumination map” was constructed using over 1700 photographs of the same area of the moon’s south pole taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) over a six month period. Because the moon’s rotational axis is tilted by only 1.54 degrees (compared to Earth’s 23.5 degrees), some areas near its poles are left in…
Can You Survive A Jump From A Building?
Kids, if I EVER catch you doing this you will be grounded for like 2 months. That means no Wii and no internet. GROUNDED. Which one of these guys was the first to come up with this crazy idea. “I will give you 10 rubles if you jump off the building into the snow.” Really…