This week I recommend to follow @NiteSkyGirl for news from an amateur astronomer who still observes the night sky with her backyard telescopes. For more Twitter follow suggestions see our astronomy list @TheAstroBlog/astronomy Weekly Stumbles: NASA’s Spitzer Sees the Light … Continue reading
Several million stars are vying for attention in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a raucous stellar breeding ground in 30 Doradus, located in the heart of the Tarantula nebula. 30 Doradus is the brightest star-forming region in our galactic neighbourhood and home to the most massive stars ever seen. Continue reading
Scientists are keeping a close eye on a big asteroid that may pose an impact threat to Earth in a few decades. The space rock, which is called 2011 AG5, is about 140 meters wide. It may come close enough to Earth in 2040 that some researchers are calling for a discussion about how to deflect it. Continue reading
As the United States settles in for the long winter ahead in American space launch capabilities, after a summer that witnessed the end of the Shuttle program, two radically different visions for the future have emerged, put forward by two equally different entities. Continue reading
Move over Commander Data, there’s a real robot in space, now. The International Space Station got a new crewmember today, one made not of flesh and blood, but of gears and clockwork instead. Called Robonaut 2, the automaton astronaut was activated by human spaceflyers today. Continue reading
A ring of antimatter, more specifically antiprotons, has been recently discovered around the Earth. Since antiprotons are charged sub-atomic particles, they are confined by the planet’s magnetic field lines. Continue reading
Sample return is something of a holy grail to planetary explorers. The advantage is that age dating and extensive compositional analysis can be done better with modern instruments in Earth-based laboratories than on miniaturized instruments that have to prepared years in advance for space flight. Continue reading
About one in 10 rocky planets around stars like our Sun may host a moon proportionally as large as Earth’s, researchers say. Our Moon is disproportionately large – more than a quarter of Earth’s diameter – a situation once thought to be rare. 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
Unlike conventional rockets, launch loops can have many launches per hour, independent of weather, and are not inherently polluting. Rockets create pollution such as nitrates in their exhausts due to high exhaust temperature, and can also create greenhouse gases depending on propellant choices. Continue reading