NASA Lunar Explorer Has Smashing End
NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE mission had a smashing ending early Friday morning when the US space agency crashed the spacecraft into the moon’s surface. The ground controllers, monitoring the spacecraft’s operations from NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, confirmed that it impacted the lunar surface as planned sometime […]
Astronomers May Have Spotted A Moon Orbiting an Extrasolar Planet
According to NASA, more than 1,000 extrasolar planets have been confirmed in recent years. There are also thousands more potential planets beyond our solar system that are waiting to be discovered. Now, an international group of astronomers think they may have found the first exomoon, or moon circling an exoplanet, some 1,800 light years away […]
Excessive Gamma Rays at Milky Way’s Center Hint at Dark Matter
Scientists believe high-energy gamma rays emanating from the center of our Milky Way are being produced by dark matter, the mysterious hypothetical substance believed to make up most of the physical universe. A new study based on independent research of gamma ray light shows that the center of our galaxy is cranking out huge amounts […]
Science Images of the Month
Hubble Watches and Records Rare Asteroid Disintegration
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured some amazing and breathtaking images since it began scanning the cosmos in 1990. But, from late last year into early this year, the space telescope was able to capture and record something that, until now, had never been seen before; the breakup of an asteroid located in the asteroid […]
NASA, ESA Ramp Up Planet-hunting Missions
NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler mission stirred up excitement this week when mission officials announced they’d hit the proverbial jackpot – discovering and confirming a record 715 new planets orbiting 305 stars. Nearly 95 percent of these newly found planets are smaller than Neptune, but four are about 2.5 times bigger than Earth and are located within […]
Planetary Scientists Get Into Balloon Game
A new device developed by NASA will help planetary scientists take advantage of high altitude research balloons, a relatively inexpensive observational platform that has long been used by other scientists. The balloons, which can climb to the edge of space, have been utilized by researchers across multiple scientific disciplines, helping them to make groundbreaking findings. […]
Evidence of Water Vapor Found on Dwarf Planet Ceres
Scientists have found signs of water vapor on the dwarf planet known as Ceres. “This is the first time water vapor has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an icy surface and an atmosphere,” said Michael Küppers of the European Space Agency. […]
2014’s 1st Asteroid May Have Hit Earth
As Americans were ringing in 2014 early Wednesday morning, scientists caught sight of what appeared to be a very small asteroid – between 2 and 3 meters in size – on a potential impact trajectory with Earth. The observation was made at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona. The space rock, designated 2014 AA, […]
Scientists Find the Coldest Place on Earth
Winter officially arrives in the Northern Hemisphere in about 10 days (12/21/13). Here in the Washington, DC area, temperatures have already been dropping below 0° C at times. While some of us are already complaining about the recent icy temperatures we know it could be a lot worse! Scientists from NASA and the U.S. Geological […]