A maneuver on Tuesday (June 26, 2012) adjusted the flight path of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for delivering the rover Curiosity to a landing target beside a Martian mountain. The car-size, one-ton rover is bound for arrival the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT. Continue reading
The powerful jets of radio waves that can explode from monster black holes at the center of galaxies may erupt from much closer to these giants than previously thought, scientists say. Although black holes entrap anything that falls onto them, a vast amount of energy can radiate outward from matter rushing into the black holes. Continue reading
Water really is everywhere. Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. Continue reading
Making your own spaceplane from scratch is obviously not an easy task, which is why we’re not all going to the moon on weekends. Reaction Engines is taking it seriously, though, and their Skylon spaceplane concept has just passed a technical review by the European Space Agency, moving it one step closer to reality. Continue reading
In fifty years of spaceflight, only 285 piloted spaceships were launched, carrying 1,154 travellers. Since some of them flew more than once, only 515 human beings have flown in space. And only two dozen Americans ventured beyond Earth orbit, up to the Moon, twelve of them having walked on it. Continue reading
A Qatar astronomer teamed with scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and other institutions to discover a new alien world. This “hot Jupiter,” now named Qatar-1b, adds to the growing list of alien planets orbiting distant stars. Continue reading