Breakthrough Listen’s Search For ETI Gets Boost
The Breakthrough Listen initiative’s search for extra-terrestrial intelligent life just got a big boost thanks to hardware upgrades at Australia’s Parkes Radio Telescope. The upgraded equipment will help scientists conduct faster surveys of the sky and will provide an ability to scan the Milky Way’s disk and bulge in unparalleled detail. The Australian radio telescope […]
January 2017 Science Images
x
August 2016 Science Images
20 Years to Alpha Centauri; NASA’s Expandable Habitat; Elements of an Apology
Proposed Spacecraft Will Take 20 Years to Reach Alpha Centauri Renowned physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking and Russian internet investor and physicist Yuri Milner recently announced an ambitious new project they hope will someday send thousands of tiny spacecraft to the stars to explore space and search for life in the universe. Called ‘Breakthrough Starshot,’ […]
First Flight of NASA’s New Space Launch System Will Carry 13 CubeSats
NASA says the planned 2018 inaugural flight of its new and powerful rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will test the performance of the SLS and Orion spacecraft as an integrated system before it can be used to send humans into space. This initial flight, called Exploration Mission-1 or EM-1, will also carry 13 CubeSats […]
Rosetta Mission Fuels Argument About Origin of Earth’s Water
The debate about the origin of Earth’s water just got deeper. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta has sent back some interesting information regarding water vapor it detected and analyzed on its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. According to the ESA and an international group of scientists, the analysis shows that the chemical composition of […]
Unique Carbon-Based Molecule Found in Deep Space May Indicate Origins of Life
Astronomers from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, and the University of Cologne found an unusual carbon-based molecule called isopropyl cyanide in a gas cloud some 27,000 light years away. Those involved with the discovery say the finding suggests the type of complex molecules needed for life may have […]
Sleeping Comet Chaser to Get Wake-Up Call
The European Space Agency’s comet chasing Rosetta spacecraft is about to wake up from a 31-month nap, which was induced to conserve power after the vehicle ventured too far from the sun. While ESA officials are confident Rosetta will respond when they try to rouse it this Monday, Jan. 20, they also realize anything could […]
NASA Wants to Speed Journey to Mars
NASA wants to shorten the journey to Mars. It took about eight months for its Mars rover, Curiosity, to reach the red planet. And now, the US space agency is looking for ways to cut the travel time for future manned missions there. Researchers in Washington State say that might be possible through a unique […]
Earth Preps for Close Encounter with Asteroid
Earth is about to have a close encounter with an asteroid, the nearest an object of its size has ever come to our planet. The fly-by is expected to occur at around 1924 UTC on Feb. 15, according to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The US space agency says there’s no chance the asteroid […]