Pre-Solar System Dust Found in the Atmosphere
A research team led by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology say they have discovered the remains of the formation of the solar system in some interstellar dust. The dust particles, which were gathered in Earth’s atmosphere by NASA aircraft, are thought to have been cast off from […]
Asteroid May Have Immigrated From Another Solar System to Ours
An odd cigar-shaped object name Oumuamua made news late last year when it was determined to be of interstellar origin. It was touted as the solar system’s first visitor from another star system. A new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters details the discovery of what scientists are calling the […]
NASA Plans to Fly Helicopter on Mars
There are two robotic rovers traversing and exploring the surface of Mars – NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers. These rovers, along with two others (Sojourner & Spirit) from past missions, use(d) specially made wheels to get around the Red Planet. Instead of just wheels NASA now wants to try a different way to travel around Mars. […]
How Will Our Sun Die?
Scientists say our Sun has been shining for about the last 4.6 billion years. They also say the Sun is expected to have enough hydrogen to fuel nuclear fusion in its core to allow it to continue shining as it has for about another 5 billion years. Along with creating solar energy, the Sun’s hydrogen […]
Calculations Show Mercury Has a Thin but Dense Crust
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and very little is really known about this hot rocky orb. So far, only two space probes have ever studied Mercury. NASA’s Mariner 10 flew past the planet three times between 1973 and 1974. The flybys allowed scientists to map about half the planet, discover its thin […]
NASA Launches TESS the Exoplanet Hunter
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will soon join NASA’s fleet of exoplanet-hunters that, so far, includes the Kepler, Hubble, and the Spitzer Space Telescopes. TESS was launched at 2251 UTC on April 18, 2018, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The space observatory is expected to survey about 85% of […]
SWARM Tracks the Ocean’s Magnetic Field
Earth’s magnetic fields protect us from deadly radiation from high-energy solar particles and cosmic rays. Most of this protective shield is produced by a vast amount of hot molten iron swirling around in our planet’s outer core. But there’s another little-known contributor to our geomagnetic field. It’s the salty and electrically conductive ocean. When salty ocean […]
ESA Mars Orbiter Gets A Software Upgrade
If you own any kind of computing device, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer, you know sooner or later that you’re going to have to update or install new software to keep it functioning. The same thing can also be said about spacecraft that have been in service for a while. The […]
Radio Telescope Finds No Signs of Alien Life in Interstellar Object
Soon after the October 2017 discovery of Oumuamua, the first confirmed interstellar object to visit our solar system, rumors and conspiracy theories began popping up all over the Internet. Because of its suspected origins, as well as its odd, flat, cigar-shaped appearance, word started to spread that the object was actually an alien interstellar space […]
Could a Net and a Harpoon Cleanup Space Junk?
The Chinese space station Tiangong 1’s recent fall to Earth, in an unguided re-entry, has raised discussion again on how to address the nagging problem of space junk or orbital debris circling our planet. The website for NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office indicates that more than 21,000 orbital debris, larger than 10 cm, are known […]