This Week in History: January 1-4
JANUARY 1, 1801: On the first day of the 19th Century, Giuseppe Piazzi at the Palermo Observatory in Sicily discovers the first-known asteroid, now known as (1) Ceres. As a resident of the “main asteroid belt” between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres remains the largest-known asteroid (diameter 950 km), and is now formally designated a “dwarf …
Comet of the Week: 81P/Wild 2
Comet 81P/Wild 2’s Perihelion: 2003 September 25.93, q = 1.590 AU Comet 81P/Wild 2 was discovered on January 6, 1978, by Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who photographically patrolled the skies for several decades from the University of Bern. Throughout that time he discovered numerous asteroids and supernovae, as well as eight comets; he has the …
Special Topic: Main belt asteroids
Ice and Stone 2020 is a weekly series of educational material focusing on some of the small bodies of the solar system – comets and asteroids. The Earthrise Institute, a non-profit founded by Comet Hale-Bopp co-discoverer Alan Hale, is partnering with the La Cumbres Observatory and RocketSTEM to release the material for FREE online so that …
Canada working with U.S. to inspire a future generation of astronauts
The United States and Canada are joining forces to encourage a new generation of astronauts. The two countries have cooperated on space exploration since soon after NASA, the U.S. space agency, was founded in 1958. Canada sends astronauts on NASA space missions, and it supplies technology for the International Space Station, among other space efforts. …
Blue Origin goes step by step ferociously into space
The appearance of a photo of an old wooden sailing ship set the stage for a dramatic announcement by a secretive space company earlier this year. On April 26th of this year the usually quiet twitter account of Jeff Bezos’ privately funded space company, Blue Origin, tweeted a cryptic yet telling image: a black and …
Koch and Meir complete historic first all-female spacewalk
A dynamic duo of NASA women astronauts – Christina Koch and Jessica Meir – made history Friday, Oct. 18 when they carried out and successfully completed history’s first all-female spacewalk. Soaring some 400 kilometers above Earth while working and floating outside the International Space Station (ISS), they performed a critical task of swapping out a …
New spacesuits unveiled for future Artemis missions
Culminating years of design effort, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine unveiled a pair of hi-tech spacesuits to be worn by the first woman and the next man who will journey to the Moon in Orion capsules and walk on the lunar South Pole – during a rousing event held Tuesday, Oct. 15, at NASA Headquarters in …
Sounding rocket to send a dusty lab into the sky
Joe Nuth loves dust. Among astronomers, that puts him in a minority. “The traditional astronomers — the people looking at galaxies and stars — they hate dust,” said Nuth, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s the stuff that’s in their way.” Like the Earthly dust that gathers under …
India’s Vikram lander remains silent since last moments of lunar descent
Indian scientists have pinpointed the location of their ambitious Vikram lunar lander on the Moon’s surface this weekend via imaging from their Chandrayaan-2 orbiting mothership. The lander was feared lost last Friday when contact was lost in the final moments of descent. The mission is India’s first attempt to soft land a robotic probe on …
Parker Solar Probe makes close approach to the Sun
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe narrowly zipped by the Sun on Sept. 1, 2019 in its third close approach, mere weeks after celebrating the completion of its second solar orbit and the first anniversary of its launch from Earth. Meanwhile, during that same timeframe, the Earth has made only a single leisurely jaunt around the Sun. …