The most interesting story this week was about the sorry state of NASA’s finances and the US space program in general. While a lot of amazing research will be done over the next couple of years (Mars, Ceres, Pluto and more), there’s not a lot happening after that due to budget cuts in previous years. President Obama
I think the most interesting story this week has to be the recently discovered Red Dwarf star that passed through our Solar System just 70,000 years. Think about it: It happened when Modern Humans had just begun expanding out of Africa. Luckily, Sholz’s star (named after its discoverer), traversed the Oort cloud, about 0.8 light years from the
The latest version of Solar Explorer brings you the the dwarf planet Eris, some random improvements, and of course, bug fixes. Adding the dwarf planet Eris to Solar Explorer proved to be a great deal of work. Immediately after adding it, the first run showed Eris passing dangerously near Saturn at its closest approach to the Sun. It shouldn’t
This week it’s all about Mars. We have discussions on how to get there, a NASA video showing off a spacesuit design for Mars and an interview with three people intending to die there. Also a photo of the Martian polar ice cap that appears as if it’s made out of ice-cream. Europa is in the news
In less than twelve months, one asteroid flyby, one comet near-miss and one asteroid hitting Earth became news. An asteroid hitting Earth in the news 2014 started with a blast when the Chelyabinsk meteor exploded spectacularly over Russia in February. At 20m/65ft in diameter, the former Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) detonated well above the ground. Despite causing extensive damage, there
This week photos have continued to arrive from Dawn and New Horizons. For the first time, we’ll soon have images of all of the large objects in the Solar System… that we know of. Europe has plans to launch it’s own mini-shuttle and NASA has announced a mission to Europa to hunt for life under
Water in space facts Is there water in space? Compared to Mercury, Venus, Mars and the Moon, Earth looks to be an oasis in a dry Universe. We now know that there is a lot of water in space. Ice been detected on the Moon, in shadowy craters that never see the Sun. Probes sent to Mars have photographed ice sheets on the Martian
Solar System Facts The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from a cloud of gas and dust. This “molecular cloud” was the remains of much older stars that had been born soon after the Big Bang. The Sun is a type G2 main-sequence star. Most of the stars in our Milky Way galaxy are cool, dim, Red
This week’s news features more from Space X and Elon’s plans to become the first Emperor of Mars. We have the long-awaited announcement of “billboards in space” and the discovery of an ancient solar system that is home to five Earth sized planets. Who is the only actor to have been killed by Alien, Predator
Until Humans are ready to venture beyond the Moon, robots will be our eyes and ears throughout the Solar System. While it would be nice to see people out there, our fearless spacecraft, rovers and landers are doing a fantastic job. In just the past few weeks we’ve received fascinating news from the robots exploring the final frontier.