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NASA's plans of new manned missions to the Moon soon to be unveiled

Now that this whole political circus has been finally wrapped, many projects that had been left on standby or have yet to enter development can now move forwards. This also includes, of course, NASA projects and its ambitious plans. Soon enough, the agency will publicly announce the first stage in its grander plan, namely setting […]

The Universe will stop making new stars very soon - no more than 5% more stars will be born

A startling study, which looked at data 10 times more comprehensive compared to previous similar efforts, found that half of all the stars that have ever existed were created between 9 and 11 billion years ago, with the other half created in the years since. What this means is an exponential fall in new stars being […]

New super-Earth exoplanet is a mere 46 light-years away

Astronomers have used a novel planet hunter instrument to detect a new possible life supporting, Earth-like exoplanet. In fact the new planet is classed as a super-Earth, since it has a minimum mass of 7.1 times that of our planet, and is properly located on its parent star’s orbit to support the presence of liquid […]

Black hole at the center of our galaxy bursts out

As far as black holes go, Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is pretty boring. It emits about the same energy as the sun, despite being 4 million times more massive. Sagittarius A* Astronomers have observed that about once a day, the black hole awakes, emitting a brief […]

Radar images of an asteroid during its closest flyby

Between Oct. 28 and Oct. 30, NASA‘s Deep Space Network antenna in California was directed on “2007 PA8“, a one mile wide asteroid. In these few days the asteroid came the closest it will ever get to Earth in 200 years, which was still a few million miles away. Nevertheless, NASA released composite images of […]

Hubble takes brilliant picture of young star population in elderly company

The great pics from Hubble just never end! This time, the brave telescope offered an impressive view of the center of globular cluster NGC 6362. The image of this spherical collection of stars takes a deeper look at the core of the globular cluster, which contains a high concentration of stars with different colors. Seeing […]

Asteroid belts may be crucial to intelligent life formation - alien life could be rarer than thought

When you think of asteroid impacts, the last thing that might come to mind is life. Contrary to popular belief, a team of researchers have recently presented their theory that holds intelligent life on our planet spurred with the help of asteroid impacts. As cosmic cold rock hit Earth, the impacts allowed for a shift […]

Curiosity takes a deep breath, analyzes Martian atmosphere

Curiosity took a break from its usual rock sampling activities and instead focused on the air, trying to figure out how Mars lost the biggest part of its atmosphere, leaving it with 100 times less than what Earth has.   Researchers believe in the distant past, Mars was a pretty different sight from what we […]

Astronomers capture light from first stars using bright galaxies

I gotta say, sometimes it absolutely baffles me to see the kind of complex studies astrophysicists do, and this is definitely one of them. The light from the first stars in the Universe is still lingering around in the cosmos, and researchers have found a new way to capture it: using ultra-bright galaxies that act […]

Felix Baumgartner: Mars missions are a waste of tax dollars

Felix Baumgartner, the supersonic man who jumped from about 40.000 meters above ground is definitely a man up for new thrills and new conquests, so you’d expect him to be all for space exploration. But in a recent interview, he takes the totally opposite stand, claiming that any Mars missions are a waste of money […]

The 'Last Pictures' project: a time capsule set to orbit Earth, built to outlive the human race by billions of years

Do you remember Carl Sagan’s Voyager Golden Records? When the now iconic first  Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977, a series of phonograph records containing 116 sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth were also attached onboard. These were inserted with the idea in mind that some alien race […]

Vesta covered in carbon by gentle asteroids

Vesta is “peppered” with carbon materials which researchers believe were left behind by asteroids gently striking its surface. Vesta is an asteroid itself – but one so large that some astronauts were actually thinking about declaring it a planet, or at least a protoplanet. It is the second largest asteroid in our solar system, second […]

Aging satellite fleet could leave weather forecast in the dark

In the wake of the Sandy hurricane, which is currently still sweeping through North America’s east coast, weather forecasting has suddenly become a subject of major interest. It shouldn’t take natural disasters, which are getting more and more frequent unfortunately, to spark interest in this matter of grave importance. Despite this, funding for space geosciences, […]

Mars bite tastes like Earth - soil similar to Hawaii

After Curiosity had a bite of Martian turf at the site of Rocknest a few days earlier, soil analysis results have finally come in. According to scientists at NASA, the Martian sand in the rover’s vicinity is very much akin to volcanic soils found on Earth such as those of  Hawaii. Though Mars is far from being […]

SpaceX spacecraft lands safely on Earth, with creepy cargo

SpaceX has gone where no private company has gone before – and safely returned. They are now officially the only company able of space flight, after successfully delivering cargo to the International Space Station and now, returning, with some rather dubious cargo.   Of the total 907 kilograms of experiments and gear it holds, the […]

Forget about nukes, dangerous asteroids could be deflected with paintball pellets

No, this isn’t one of those misleading headlines. A MIT graduate student has recently proposed that bombarding an asteroid’s surface with paintballs could throw it off course from a possible collision orbit with our planet, by harnessing solar pressure. The paintball cloud would hit the targeted asteroid and cover it in paint – white paint to […]

Keep your children close - zombie planet roams once more

The general consensus was that a star called Fomalhaut doesn’t host any planet. But astronomers, the thorough people they are, decided to take another look at it using the Hubble Space Telescope – and the results contradicted the everything, claiming that Fomalhaut does in fact have a planet, and furthermore, this planet (Fomalhaut b) is […]

Three new members join International Space Station

Three new members have now embarked on the International Space Station, after docking the Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft to the Poisk module. After NASA retired their sub-orbital space flight program, the Soyuz shuttles are currently the only way to get people in and out of the ISS. For Commander Sunita Williams and Flight Engineers Aki Hoshide […]

Saturn creates largest, hottest gas storm ever recorded in the Solar System

The Cassini spacecraft recorded the aftermath of the largest, hottest gas vortex ever recorded in our solar system, making astrophysicists think there’s much more to Saturn’s atmosphere than meets the eye. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft (often just called Cassini) is a robotic ship sent out to monitor the Saturn system. It sent out surprising, valuable data […]

Mini-supermassive black hole discovered by astronomers

Though this might sound like an oxymoron, this is possible the best term to describe one of the most interesting recent astronomical finds – the lowest mass supermassive black hole discovered so far. The black hole was detected at the center of a late-spiral galaxy, which astronomers at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory initially believed it […]

European Observatory (ESO) assembles 9 gigapixel image with 84 million stars

The European Southern Observatory has captured and analyzed an image of the center of our galaxy which, if printed at normal resolution, would measure 9 x 7 meters. The enormous 9 gigapixel image features the very center of the Milky Way and was created not to be a background for huge screens, but to help […]

Manned Mars mission could stomp on existing Martian life

Humanity has long dreamed of a mission to Mars, but the boots which would take the first steps on the Red Planet could be stomping on all Martian life. Despite any decontamination process, a swarm of 100 trillion microbes will accompany every astronaut who lands on Mars – as a part of their system. This […]

Amazon founder's space company passes key safety test

After SpaceX’s recent successful docking with the ISS, when it brought critical mission cargo to the space station, another important milestone for private space exploration has been attained, this time on part of another space company. Jeff Bezos’ (Amazon) private space venture, Blue Origin, recently successfully tested its emergency crew escape system – a key pre-requirement for getting […]

New ESA planet-hunter space telescope slated for 2017

The European Space Agency has officially announced that it will launch a new space telescope tasked with the primary objective of finding Earth-like planets in our neighboring cosmic backyard. Though the mission’s budget is rather small, there’s nothing modest about its goals. Dubbed CHEOPS or CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite, at the end of its 3.5 year-long scheduled mission the […]

Curiosity rover takes another bite of Mars

Nope, this is not the Mars chocolate I’m talking about – NASA’s Curiosity rover is digging in at Rocknest – a patch of Martian sand the robot has been exploring for the past week. If you look at the picture above, taken by one of Curiosity’s camera, you can actually see three bite-like marks, left […]

Record setting astronaut says floating around in space is "priceless"

Sunita Williams is an Indian-American astronaut who currently holds the record for longest space flight time among female space travelers (over 200 days). She recently declared she’s not missing gravity at all and that she finds the experience of floating around in imponderability priceless. “I love being up here and I love floating around,” 47-year-old […]

Solar plasma waves imaged with gradient filter turns science to fine art

This Friday, a solar eruption of spectacular proportions took place. The ensuing plasma wave, measuring millions of degrees in temperature, lasted for several hours, which is atypical for such events, and was several times the size of the Earth. It’s not the eruption’s sheer enormity that’s impressive, but it’s beauty as well, and for this […]

Black hole emits a jet at near light speed - tens of times bigger than the Milky Way

Astronomes have snapped a picture of a peculiar jet of material blasting from the supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. These jets are pretty much the biggest things we know of in the Universe, some of them being over 100 times bigger than the Milky way. It really looks similar to […]

This weekend's Orionids meteor shower in PHOTOS

Like I mentioned last week, this past weekend was light struck by Halley’s comet offsprings in a dazzling feast for the eyes and spirit. The debris from the famed comet, which last visited Earth in 1986, helps produce up to 25 meteors per hour during the Orionid meteor shower. Thus, those lucky enough to be out […]

ISS bound astronaut explains scientific breakthroughs will surge in the next decade

Surprisingly many people have question the benefits of building and supporting an international space stations, especially considering the costs, which so far are just over $100 billion in 12 years. But people have to understand that only now can ISS astronauts start doing the science they were supposed to, as the ISS is just barely […]

First samples from lake Vostok (isolated for millions of years) are microbe-free

A first analysis of the ice that froze onto the drillbit used to drill in the pristine Vostok lake shows no native microbes came with the ice. A while ago, researchers understood that precious insight on alien life could be found right here on Earth – in Russia, to be more precise. But Antarctica’s is […]

Most detailed observations of Uranus reveal complex atmospheric patterns

The most detailed observations of the icy world of Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, show complex weather patterns and other features that scientists have yet to fully describe. Popular belief had Uranus depicted as a bland, pale green world based on the now iconic observations from Voyager’s 1986 flyby of the planet. Its […]

The moment is finally here - first samples analyzed by Curiosity

It’s dinner time, and you know what there’s on the menu? Rocks! Martian rocks, to be more precise. After what seemed at times to be an excruciating series of baby steps, the rover has finally managed to extract the first samples and place it in CheMin – one of the two miniature laboratories located inside […]

Pluto's moons pose grave threat to NASA's New Horizons spacecraft

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently seven years into its nine-and-a-half-year journey across the Solar System to explore Pluto. Since its launch in 2006, however, astronomers have discovered two more moons orbiting the dwarf-planet, which now pose a grave threat to the spacecraft’s initial navigation course because of space debris orbiting them. “We’ve found more and […]

The Endeavour's final excursion through Los Angeles

This past weekend, the last American space shuttle, the Endeavour, made its final trip through the streets of Los Angeles to the California Science Center. The trip lasted from midnight Friday morning until midday Sunday as the shuttle traveled at the high speeds of two miles per hour.  There were many delays and the shuttle […]

Stunning time-lapse video from the ISS

There’s no shortage of fantastic pics and videos from the International Space Station, but this mesmerizing time lapse video just takes the icing. It’s easy to just lose yourself in the video, but if you can just focus a little, towards the mid of the video, you’ll see some white blobs – which are in […]

Earth-sized lava world found in Alpha Centaury - closest find yet

The search for other planets gets more and more exciting and fruitful, and now, researchers have found an exoplanet which lies truly close to us – in cosmic terms. Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri is the closest solar system to our own, at only 4 light years away, so finding an Earth-sized planet there really is […]

Don't miss this weekend's Orionids meteor shower peak

Since last Sunday, Halley’s comet offspring have been swirling through the night sky delighting star gazers all around the world. This coming weekend, however, the Orionids will be at their peak and full splendor – your definitely don’t want to miss it! This time of year, the moon sets at about midnight, which offers more time for […]

Precursor of water found in Moon soil - Sun might be responsible

A group of researchers from the United States found out that the Moon is covered with a soil containing typical water structure. Weirdly enough, the water substructure packed soil is created by a constant stream of charged particles coming from the sun, according to the team.   The key is hydroxyl. As you probably know, […]

Star dies in a dazzling 3-D spiral light show - might surface new details on star evolution

Astronomers have come across a peculiar phenomenon after observing a distant dying star that sheds matter in a three-dimensional spirally pattern due to pulsations at its core. This is a totally atypical behavior, which scientists have yet to encounter before, one that might shed new light on star evolution. The red star called R Sculptoris, […]

SpaceX reaches International Space Station safely with precious cargo

Following what seemed to be a serious problem with one of the engines from the Falcon 9 rocket, the unmanned but highly equipped Dragon capsule successfully latched itself to the International Space Station (ISS). The capsule was capture by astronauts using a robotic arm after what seemed to be a flawless approach – which is […]

Plans for lunar water mining robot revealed

Astrobotic Technology Inc., a spin-off company of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) announced a full-sized prototype called the Polaris lunar rover – a rover designed specifically to work in the dark side of the Moon, home of the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar poles.   The idea is to launch the rover using one of […]

SpaceX rocket suffers engine anomaly, officials insist it's not a failure

After SpaceX managed what seemed to be a successful launch, one of the nine Merlin engines suffered what the company called “an anomaly” – an anomaly that looks just like an explosion – but engineers insist it’s not really a problem and everything went according to plan. You can check it out for yourself, in […]

Curiosity scoops martian soil in yet another milestone [VIDEO]

It may look like an ordinary cup of sand, but for NASA scientists this is a milestone almost as important as the rover’s landing on Mars itself. Yesterday, Curiosity finally scooped a patch of martian soil and shook it for refinement, a moment which was being observed with anxiety from back on Earth. “There was a […]

Closest star orbiting our galaxy's black hole discovered

Astronomers at UCLA university have made a remarkable discovery, after they’ve confirmed the presence of a star orbiting the black hole at the center of our galaxy in a mere 11-and-a-half years – that’s the shortest known orbit of any star near this black hole. The researchers involved in the paper describing the find claim that […]

SpaceX begins first cargo mission to International Space Station

We’re entering a new era in terms of low orbit space flight, ladies and gents. SpaceX successfully launched the first in a dozen planned missions to supply the International Space Station, after it successfully tested its Dragon capsule and Falcon rocket earlier this year. Thirty years ago, a private company launching shuttles to the ISS […]

Astronomers find star orbiting a black hole in the center of our galaxy

Einstein’s theory, as well as other theories about the fundamental space-time fabric around a black hole may be strongly tested, after astronomers report the finding of a a star that orbits an enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Scientists explain it takes the star 11 and a half years to […]

NASA's Curiosity to scoop first sample

The Curiosity rover is preparing to scoop in the Martian soil for the first time. The vehicle has driven up to a pile of sandy material that mission scientists have dubbed “Rocknest”. Using its clam-shaped tool, Curiosity will start digging in the ground, the first thing to do being to eliminate any previous earthly contamination. […]

Today marks 55 years since Sputnik's iconic orbit

Precisely today, October 4, 55 years ago one of the most important milestones in human spaceflight took place. Then, the first ever artificial satellite, the soviet Sputnik, was launched into space and into Earth’s orbit, signaling the start of the space race, while also sparking an unprecedented support for sciences in American schools. As the […]

Universe expansion speed measured better than ever

The universe is expanding – fast. Researchers had a pretty good idea how fast, but now, they measured in even greater detail: it is expanding at a rate of 74.3 plus or minus 2.1 kilometers (46.2 plus or minus 1.3 miles) per second per megaparsec (a megaparsec being about 3 million light-years). Hard to wrap […]

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