Space & Spaceflight

Here’s the Rosetta Spacecraft Lining Up Its Asteroid Landing Shot

After a decade of interplanetary travel and a harrowing orbital entry, the ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft is finally cruising within 50 kilometers of its target, the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko asteroid. To commemorate the momentous event, the Rosetta snapped this selfie with its target in the background. Up next: landing on the rapidly spinning space rock. The Rosetta program…

Here’s Some Great 4K Space Porn to Test Your Expensive Display

Like space timelapses? Spend a lot of money on monitors and TVs? Then today is your lucky day, because this time-lapse, shot by astronaut Alexander Gerst, will let you enjoy both at once. (It also looks perfectly lovely on a normal display, too.) All the images in this video we captured by the European Space…

How Long Humans Can Live in Space—and What Happens if We Stay Too Long

How long can humans live in space? We don’t know the answer to that. But every crew that resides on the International Space Station provides us information that we use to adjust our protocols and extends that period of time. The longest contiguous amount of time a human has spent in space is 437 days.…

NASA’s Next-Generation Orion Space Capsule Is Ready for Riders

After a decade of development, NASA’s next-generation Orion crew module is finally complete! Now comes the hard part: ensuring that it actually works. Crews have just its completed construction at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They’re now in the process of transferring the Orion to a different…

How Long You Can Survive in Space Without a Suit

Getting blown out of an airlock and into space without a suit is not a pleasant experience. But if it were to happen, just how long could you survive? In fact, longer than you probably think. While you’ll be unconscious within 15 seconds, you might be able to cling on for as long as three…

Part of an Asteroid Set to Skim Earth Fell and Made a Big Crater

An asteroid known as 2014 RC was due to skim past our planet over the weekend. But instead of passing by in the distance, it’s believed part of the rock fell to earth in Nicaragua creating a gigantic crater. The BBC reportsthat a meteorite landed close to the Nicaraguan capital of Managua on Sunday, around…

Our New High-Res Public Satellite Uses Infrared to See Through Smoke

Much like donning a pair of magical X-ray spectacles, DigitalGlobe’s recently launched high-res imaging satellite WorldView-3 can see straight through things like smoke—to identify what’s really happening on the surface of the Earth. While WorldView-3 will create images that are twice as detailed as Google Maps, it also has other tricks up its sleeve—like a…

Space Station Defies Humans, Launches Satellites Without Permission

The International Space Station has a cannon that launches tiny CubeSat microsatellites into orbit. Most of the time, those launches are triggered by human scientists on board or back on Earth. But this week, the ISS launched two CubeSats entirely on its own. This is how the uprising begins. Yes, on Thursday night, ISS commander…

What Would Happen If the Sun Ceased to Exist for Just One Second?

If you mean simply “is not visible” then very little, we’d have a second of darkness, not unlike an eclipse, and then we’d be back to normal. If on the other hand, you mean “ceases to exist momentarily” then you’re talking about something else entirely. The orbits of all of the planets and a great…

An Asteroid Is Set to Skim By Earth This Sunday

Keep your eyes peeled: a small asteroid called 2014 RC is set to skim past Earth on Sunday 7th September. It should safely miss the planet—if calculations are correct. NASA scientists reckonthat the lump of rock should pass over New Zealand at about 2:18 p.m. EDT on Sunday September 7th. Current observations suggest that the…

How the Enormous Mirrors on the World’s Largest Telescope Are Made

The Giant Magellan Telescope is easily the most ambitious terrestrial astronomy program humanity’s ever devised. It has—quite literally—been built from the ground up by leveraging a brilliant, unique off-axis design and bleeding-edge fabrication techniques. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the telescope’s enormous mirror system. These mirrors, which are still in the process…

Japan’s Decade-Long Mission to Mine an Asteroid

1999 JU3: It doesn’t sound like a very noteworthy name. It’s just one of more than 5,000 Apollo-class asteroids. But 1999 JU3 could become a household name if Japan succeeds in mining it—a mission that JAXA has struggled with for decades, often disastrously. And on Sunday, it revealed the probe that could redeem it. Four…

Destiny’s new Planet Map is like Google Streetview for the solar system

Ahead of release next week, Bungie have launched a new promotional site for their Sci-Fi rpg-shooter Destiny, offering a on-the-ground look at humanity’s lost space empire. There’s a lot of cool things to see about the 3 non-earth locations coming to the game – the Moon, Mars and Venus – as well as the aliens…

Oh Man, All The Space Sex Geckos Are Dead

Sad news from Russia’s Foton-M4 satellite. The spacecraft on which a group of geckos spent a few weeks trying to get it on in microgravity returned to Earth, as planned, earlier today. The only problem? The lizards were frozen solid. As you might recall, there was some drama a few days after the space-bound gecko…

The Russian Space Sex Lizards Are Dead

I hope you’re sitting down on a piece of comfortable patio furniture this Labor Day, for I have tidings of great sorrow: the Russian space sex lizards have died. The plight of the five geckos sent into orbit to engage in lizard coitus so scientists could study zero-gravity reproduction first captured our attention in late…

You Can Buy This Adorable, Original Soviet Spacesuit For Your Dog

Is your dog made of tough stuff? Is it calm under pressure? Is it smart, patient and loyal? Then maybe it would make a great space dog—and if so this is just the outfit for your precocious pooch. This is one of the original 1950s dog spacesuits, originally used to test what effects low gravity…

Just look at this majestic image of light and dark in our Universe. The latest image from the Hubble Space Telescope, it shows young stellar objects, a number of bright stars and a reflection of the nebula known as [B77] 63. Ain’t it pretty. [ESA]

NASA Approves Construction of the World’s Most Powerful Rocket

For all the super-cool and otherworldly space vehicle and satellite concepts that NASA engineers dream up, only a very small percentage of them ever make it off the drawing board and onto the production line. But the next generation Space Launch System is now part of that select few, having completed NASA’s rigorous review process…

NASA Is Tearing Down One of the Last Vestiges of Its Shuttle Program

How do you strap an 87-ton Space Shuttle to the back of a 63 foot-tall 747? You use this metal monstrosity. Or, you did, before the program ended in 2011. Now, after nearly four decades of service, NASA’s tearing it down. While the space shuttle orbiter could circle the Earth with ease, it was entirely…

Why Are Stars Star-Shaped?

Our Sun is spherical, so why is it that other stars look… star-shaped in the night sky? Actually, it’s all down to the quirks of light and your (imperfect) eyes. In this video, Minute Physics explains how a single point of light—like a star in the night sky—can be distorted as it passes through lenses…