Space & Spaceflight

Get Your Ass To a Pacific Island for Next Month’s Total Solar Eclipse

Total solar eclipses are marvelous quirks of nature that occur once every 18 months or so. But unless you live in, or are about to travel to, the middle of the Pacific, you’re going to be sitting the next one out. On March 9th, a new Moon will sweep across the Pacific in the ecliptic…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

We Think These Martian Roadmaps Accidentally Revealed the Site of an Upcoming Mars Landing

In 2018, a Martian rover will land on that planet’s surface to dig in the dirt for signs of past life—and some newly commissioned Martian roadmaps may have accidentally revealed more than intended about just where that site will be. These maps from the UK’s Ordnance Survey of the Martian plains were designed to take…

Space & Spaceflight Ria Misra

This Geologic Map of Pluto Is Just Incredible

Remember when Pluto was nothing more than a pixelated blob at the edge of our Solar System? We were so young then. But now, seven months after New Horizons’ historic flyby, scientists have amassed so much data on the former ninth planet that they’re constructing our first geologic maps of it. The map above spans…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

Orion Is Ready to Wear Its Shield

The Orion Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) spacecraft is about to get its heat shield, which is manufactured in large part by Lockheed Martin. Building the heat shield involved a so-called out of autoclave (OOA) cure process, a high temperature, high pressure method for manufacturing composite materials, such as carbon fiber and epoxy resins. Orion’s heat…

Space & Spaceflight Attila Nagy

Ground Control Has Finally Given Up on the Philae Lander

So long, Philae: You were a plucky little lander, but it’s time to say goodbye. The ground control team working with the craft has announced that it’s finally giving up hope of hearing anything back from Comet 67P. Last month, the German Aerospace Agency (DLR) reported that the chances of ever speaking to the probe…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

This Is What Gravitational Waves Sound Like

Scientists just announced the detection of gravitational waves, a discovery first reported by Gizmodo that stands to change the way we understand our universe in extraordinary ways. That said, gravitational waves are way to small to see. But you can hear them with the right instruments. Gaby González, a physicist and spokesperson for the LIGO…

Space & Spaceflight Adam Clark Estes

The Tron-Like Machine Visualizes Atoms on the International Space Station

This impressive-looking piece of equipment lives up to its appearance. The Plasma Kristall-4, to give the device its full name, recreates how atoms interact so we can understand the intricacies of basic physics and chemistry in space. The machine, a joint venture between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, creates a stew of microparticles—a surrogate…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

Researchers Just Discovered Hundreds of Galaxies Hidden Behind the Milky Way

Astronomers just uncovered hundreds of hidden galaxies a mere 250 million light years away from Earth—well within our own galactic neighborhood. But how did they stay unknown for so long? The fault isn’t with them, it’s with our own Milky Way. The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research just completed a survey, published today in…

Space & Spaceflight Ria Misra

This Snowy Soyuz Launch Looks Like a Space-Themed Christmas Card

On Sunday, a Soyuz-2.1b rocket was successfully launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia’s northern space port, carrying a 3,119-pound Glonass navigation satellite into orbit. And boy was it snowy. As the photo shows, this nighttime launch was quite spectacular thanks to the location, close to the Arctic Circle. The shimmering snow, swirling smoke and illumination…

Space & Spaceflight Attila Nagy

SpaceX Is Gearing Up To Build Lots and Lots of New Rockets

It’s been a few really good months for SpaceX, and now, the commercial spaceflight company is kicking rocket production into high gear in anticipation of a packed launch schedule. Speaking on Thursday at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Conference, SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell explained that the company was transitioning from testing and development…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

An Asteroid Will Pass Earth So Closely Next Month That We Could See It in the Sky

Let’s be very clear here: There is simply no possibility that Asteroid 2013 TX68 will get close enough to hit Earth when it flies by on March 5th. What it may do, though, is come close enough to be visible. What would it look like? That mostly depends on the trajectory the asteroid takes, which…

Space & Spaceflight Ria Misra

The Mystery of Pluto’s Moving Hills Has Finally Been Solved

Something strange has been happening on the surface of Pluto. There’s a series of hills, each about a couple miles across, and they appear to be moving. NASA has an intriguing new explanation for the phenomenon: Those aren’t just hills that we’re seeing—they’re also icebergs. It’s certainly a tidy explanation, except for one issue. That…

Space & Spaceflight Ria Misra

These Are the First Photos Taken From the Surface of the Moon in 37 Years

In 2013, China became the third country to land a vehicle on the moon. Now, a trove of photos from Chang’e-3’s historic expedition—35 Gigabytes in all—are easily searchable on the web. These are our first fresh images taken from the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor in forty years. The data from Chang’e-3’s moon landing expedition…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

We Finally Know What’s Inside Rosetta’s Comet

Scientists have long pondered what lies beneath the surface of comet 67P, but a study out in Nature this week has the answer: dust. Lots and lots of dust. I was hoping for space gremlins, but to planetary scientists this result is almost as exciting. Comets, frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system,…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

Luxembourg Wants to Be a Global Leader in Asteroid Mining

It’s home to just a half-million people, but Luxembourg is not thinking small when it comes to the future. Earlier today, this tiny European nation announced its intentions to back commercial asteroid-mining ventures, and in so doing, is positioning itself as an international leader in this promising area. Back in November, President Obama signed the…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

An Optical Illusion Has Been Tricking Everyone About the Size of Saturn’s Rings for Centuries

Look at this picture of Saturn. Can you see the biggest ring? Are you sure? Saturn’s rings have always had something of an air of mystery—but astronomers had at least been fairly confident in their observations of those rings and their relative size. The brightest and most opaque sections were assumed to be the largest,…

Space & Spaceflight Ria Misra

Sally Ride Reminds Us That One Thing Hasn’t Changed For Female Astronauts

In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to travel into space. Today, PBS Digital Studio released a short animated film featuring an interview between Ride and Gloria Steinem from that very same year. It’s a great retrospective on Ride’s early career—but it’s also a reminder that obnoxious gender biases have tailed female astronauts…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

There’s Something Very Ominous Going On Near This Supermassive Black Hole

What’s this, you ask? Oh, it’s nothing. Just a supermassive black hole blasting a giant x-ray beam over a 300,000 light year-wide gulf of intergalactic space. That’s right: you’re looking at a composite image of a tremendous cosmic blast, pieced together from 15 years of observational data collected by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

NASA’s New Mission to Mars Will Include a Giant Laser ‘Lunar Flashlight’

When NASA’s first mission to Mars kicks off in 2018, the goal is to make sure that the agency’s new rocket can make it out there before they start sending people. So, instead of a crew, this first mission will be filled with equipment for 13 science projects…including a gigantic laser flashlight that will orbit…

Space & Spaceflight Ria Misra

This Is How NASA Transports Spacecraft in an Aircraft

One of our favorite weird cargo airplanes, NASA’s Super Guppy, was caught in action again this week. The Megamind impersonator carried the Orion crew module pressure vessel from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, in New Orleans, to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The loading operations started on Monday. A crane lifted Orion on a so-called…

Space & Spaceflight Attila Nagy

Get Your Ass To a Pacific Island for Next Month’s Total Solar Eclipse

We Think These Martian Roadmaps Accidentally Revealed the Site of an Upcoming Mars Landing

This Geologic Map of Pluto Is Just Incredible

Orion Is Ready to Wear Its Shield

Ground Control Has Finally Given Up on the Philae Lander

This Is What Gravitational Waves Sound Like

The Tron-Like Machine Visualizes Atoms on the International Space Station

Researchers Just Discovered Hundreds of Galaxies Hidden Behind the Milky Way

This Snowy Soyuz Launch Looks Like a Space-Themed Christmas Card

SpaceX Is Gearing Up To Build Lots and Lots of New Rockets

An Asteroid Will Pass Earth So Closely Next Month That We Could See It in the Sky

The Mystery of Pluto’s Moving Hills Has Finally Been Solved

These Are the First Photos Taken From the Surface of the Moon in 37 Years

We Finally Know What’s Inside Rosetta’s Comet

Luxembourg Wants to Be a Global Leader in Asteroid Mining

An Optical Illusion Has Been Tricking Everyone About the Size of Saturn’s Rings for Centuries

Sally Ride Reminds Us That One Thing Hasn’t Changed For Female Astronauts

There’s Something Very Ominous Going On Near This Supermassive Black Hole

NASA’s New Mission to Mars Will Include a Giant Laser ‘Lunar Flashlight’

This Is How NASA Transports Spacecraft in an Aircraft

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

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Do ‘Disclosure Day’ Prep With a Spielberg Sci-Fi Marathon

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Ranking 2016’s Superhero Debuts, 10 Years Later

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