Space & Spaceflight

Astronomers Found a Gas Giant Orbiting Surprisingly Close to a Tiny Star

Astronomers watching a small red dwarf star 500 light years away were surprised to notice a brief dip in its already dim light. But they quickly identified the source of the change: the darker mass of a planet passing between the distant star and our vantage point on Earth. The star HATS-6 is about half…

Space & Spaceflight Kiona Smith-Strickland

The Last Picture Captured By NASA’s Messenger Before It Bit the Dust

Yesterday, NASA’s Messenger space probe slammed into the surface of Mercuryat upwards of 8,000 mph. This is its parting message: an image of the planet’s surface captured shortly before it struck down. The image shows a section of Mercury’s 93-kilometer-diameter crater Jokai. The probe finally fell to the surface just north of what’s known as…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

New Images Reveal the Dark Inner Workings of Sunspots

A series of new images captured by researchers provide the first-ever detailed view of the dark central patches of sunspots—revealing with more detail than ever how they work. The images of the Sun’s umbrae—the formal name for the dark patches at the center of sunspots—were captured by scientists using the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO).…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

The Russian Spacecraft Falling to Earth Poses No Danger

A Russian spacecraft is spinning uncontrollably around Earth after it broke down travelling to the International Space Station with food and fuel supplies. The vessel, Progress M-27M, will burn up when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere in a week or two, although there is a small chance that parts of it could crash down on the…

Space & Spaceflight Daniel Brown

The Pillars of Creation Will Disappear in a Cosmic Blink

One way or another, the Pillars of Creation are toast. Based on new observations at the European Southern Observatory, these awe-inspiring structures have another 3 million years before their ghostly image fizzles away into cosmic nothingness. That’s a maximum lifespan for the pillars, because there’s a good chance they were already destroyed, over a thousand…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

26 Soviet Space Pins From the Heat of the Space Race

There was a time when people proudly wore pins and badges of notable space achievements on their clothes. Such pins were very popular in the Soviet Union—and anybody could buy almost any kind, choosing from a wide variety of these little decorative items. Here is a collection of space pins from the first decades of…

Space & Spaceflight Attila Nagy

Watch Jeff Bezos’ New Rocket Take to the Skies For the First Time

Yesterday, Blue Origin’s New Shepard space vehicle ventured out on its first developmental test flight. The Jeff Bezos-founded organization reports that the launch was a success—though it didn’t manage to recover the propulsion module as it hoped. The vehicle’s 110,000-lbf thrust liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen BE-3 engine apparently “worked flawlessly” during the test according to…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

Understanding the Nepal Earthquake and Its Effects From Space

Saturday’s earthquake in Nepal has killed more than 5,500 people and injured at least 11,000. Now, we’re seeing how the disaster appears from space, with both NASA and the European Space Agency releasing satellite imagery of the event. Above is an image combining radar imagery from 17th and 29th April, acquired by the ESA’s Sentinel-1A…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

This Might Be the Nicest Image Yet of Comet 67P

This stunning view of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko shows what happens when its moves closer toward the Sun: it ejects gas and dust that gets left in its wake. And looks gorgeous, too. The image of the 3 kilometer-wide comet was captured by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft on April 15th, though it’s shown here in…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

When Gas Erupts Out of the Sun, It’s Like a Mountain Range Made of Fire

This picture shows a massive solar filament that’s made of burning gas. Astrophotographer Göran Strand took this yesterday with his solar telescope, and added in the scale of the distance between Earth and the Moon to give you an idea of how goddamn enormous this thing was. Strand tells Gizmodo: Here’s a photo I took…

Space & Spaceflight Annalee Newitz

This Photo of San Francisco Was Shot Just Minutes Ago From Space

What an amazing year we are living in! “San Francisco. I almost felt like I was with you as we flew overhead a few minutes ago,” NASA astronaut Scott Kelly posted on his Facebook page directly from the International Space Station. Wish we were with you space station commander!

Space & Spaceflight Attila Nagy

SpaceX Prepares Falcon 9 For Launch—and Reminds Us How Big Rockets Are

This picture shows SpaceX preparing its Falcon 9 rocket for launch at Cape Canaveral later today. If all goes well—and currently there’s a 60 percent chance of favorable weather—the launch will take place during a 90-minute window which starts at 6:14 p.m. EDT. The picture’s also a nice reminder of the sense of scale of…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

Watch The Birth Of A 17-Mile Iceberg

Most iceberg-forming videos show the violence of glaciers calving, the groaning as thousands of tonnes of ice tip into the sea. But this slow sequence of photos from NASA’s satellites reveal a far more stately process. The berg appears to have fractured from West Antarctica’s Getz Ice Shelf and moved out into in the Amundsen…

Space & Spaceflight Chris Mills

Sorry Trekkies, Tau Ceti Probably Doesn’t Harbor Alien Life

The number of exoplanets that might harbor alien life grows every year. But now, astronomers now think we can check one of science fiction’s most beloved staples off the list: Tau Ceti. Tau Ceti, a sun-like star system only 12 light years away, has long been considered one of the first places we might discover…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

You’ll Be Able To Watch Hi-Def, Live Feeds From the ISS Soon

Who needs a bird’s eye view when you could go with an astronaut’s? One company’s partnering with NASA to give us just that. Vancouver-based UrtheCast installed two cameras aboard the International Space Station via a Soyuz rocket in 2013, in a mission to “democratize the Earth Observation industry.” From your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you…

Space & Spaceflight Bryan Lufkin

Happy 25th Birthday Hubble! Amazing Pics of the Telescope’s Construction

If it weren’t for the Hubble telescope, our selection of dope images for lock screens and desktop backgrounds would be far scantier. Thankfully, NASA’s omnipresent orbiter has been snapping celestial photos for a good quarter century—but its construction actually began way earlier, back in the late 70s, continuing throughout the next decade. These images show…

Space & Spaceflight Bryan Lufkin

Florida’s Diverse Landscape Pictured From Space

This is a lovely view of Florida captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1A satellite, showing the structured geometries of agriculture in the north and the Everglades National Park in the south. The image was captured using the satellite’s Interferometric Wide swath mode, providing detail down to 5×20 meter patches on the ground. The artificial…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

Here’s Earth On Earth Day

The day just finished, April 22nd, is a globally-recognised day of awareness for recycling and hybrids and all the good stuff. To celebrate, the European Space Agency released this rather wonderful image of our special planet on its special day. The image was captured by Meteosat-10, using its Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager. SEVIRI…

Space & Spaceflight Chris Mills

So This Is What Space Coffee Brewed With Pee Looks Like

Good to the last drop! NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly has just posted this photo of a perfect ball of orbital coffee on Facebook. (And on Twitter. And on Instagram.) This tiny bowling ball is a large drop of freshly brewed espresso sitting peacefully at the end of a drinking straw in the form of an…

Space & Spaceflight Attila Nagy

Hubble’s Chief Scientist Explains How the Telescope Got Off the Ground

C Robert O’Dell was Chief Scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope project. Twenty five years after its launch, he explains what it took to get the project back in 1972. Iconic images of astronomical pillars of gas and dust, views of galaxies soon after they were formed, an accelerating universe driven by Dark Energy… “give…

Space & Spaceflight C Robert O'Dell

Astronomers Found a Gas Giant Orbiting Surprisingly Close to a Tiny Star

The Last Picture Captured By NASA’s Messenger Before It Bit the Dust

New Images Reveal the Dark Inner Workings of Sunspots

The Russian Spacecraft Falling to Earth Poses No Danger

The Pillars of Creation Will Disappear in a Cosmic Blink

26 Soviet Space Pins From the Heat of the Space Race

Watch Jeff Bezos’ New Rocket Take to the Skies For the First Time

Understanding the Nepal Earthquake and Its Effects From Space

This Might Be the Nicest Image Yet of Comet 67P

When Gas Erupts Out of the Sun, It’s Like a Mountain Range Made of Fire

This Photo of San Francisco Was Shot Just Minutes Ago From Space

SpaceX Prepares Falcon 9 For Launch—and Reminds Us How Big Rockets Are

Watch The Birth Of A 17-Mile Iceberg

Sorry Trekkies, Tau Ceti Probably Doesn’t Harbor Alien Life

You’ll Be Able To Watch Hi-Def, Live Feeds From the ISS Soon

Happy 25th Birthday Hubble! Amazing Pics of the Telescope’s Construction

Florida’s Diverse Landscape Pictured From Space

Here’s Earth On Earth Day

So This Is What Space Coffee Brewed With Pee Looks Like

Hubble’s Chief Scientist Explains How the Telescope Got Off the Ground

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Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine Hits Its Lowest Price of the Year for Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, Cut Your Daily Coffee Costs at Home

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