Discovery: A look back at the workhorse of the Space Shuttle fleet
Five years ago, Space Shuttle Discovery launched on her final mission. Today we take a look back at her history and accomplishments during 27 years of spaceflight. Space Shuttle Discovery arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 9, 1983. After testing and a hot test firing, the orbiter launched on its first mission on …
Surviving on Mars with ‘The Martian’ author Andy Weir
“Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.” Such is the opening to the description of Andy Weir’s book The Martian. A book that has come all the way from Weir posting chapters for free on his website in 2011, …
The Martian got me cheering, but why go to Mars?
The penultimate object in the spectacular Cosmonauts exhibition, just opened at the Science Museum in London, is a spacesuit for a mission to Mars. It is lightweight, almost fragile and the pink-brown colour of the Martian sky. It suggests that after the fraught Cold War dynamics of the old space race, the inevitable next destination …
Methane in the membrane (Producing rocket fuel on Mars)
Vocabulary • Carbon (C): Element with a mass of 12 g/mole • Hydrogen (H): Element with a mass of 1 g/mole • In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU): Taking advantage of a planet’s natural resources to supplement a space mission • Low Mars Orbit (LMO): The minimum altitude above the Martian surface necessary to maintain a stable …
Stuck on Mars: Comparing Mars analog simulations to ‘The Martian’
I’ve never been stuck on Mars, or any other planets save for this one. But I have had a chance to simulate what life would be like to live on Mars during a long-duration analog simulation. Like fictional astronaut Mark Watney in Andy Weir’s “The Martian”, participants in analog simulations often find themselves having to …
Flowing water exists on surface of Mars
Today, NASA made an exciting announcement about Mars. New information out of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) confirms that sporadic salty water movement is taking place on the red planet. It had been previously speculated that dark downhill flowing streaks (known as recurring slope lineae (RSL)), occurring seasonally on the slopes of Mars, were somehow …
‘Secrets of the Universe’ film in final hours of crowdfunding campaign
“Our goal is to educate and inspire a new generation of scientists.” Those are the words of the company behind an Indiegogo campaign to produce a documentary about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to be shown at museums and science centers across the U.S. and other countries. ‘Secrets of the Universe’ will follow the world’s most brilliant scientists to the LHC …
DSCOVR sees the Earth like never before
This animation features actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the Sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecraft’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) and telescope, and the Earth – one million miles away. Credit: NASA Moon seen crossing the face of the Earth A NASA camera aboard the Deep …
Flowing ice and atmospheric haze discovered on Pluto
Flowing ice and a surprising extended haze are among the newest discoveries from NASA’s New Horizons mission, which reveal distant Pluto to be an icy world of wonders. “We knew that a mission to Pluto would bring some surprises, and now — 10 days after closest approach — we can say that our expectation has …
Kepler has found Earth’s older, larger cousin
Some of the very fundamental questions about our existence – why we are here, what is out there, if we will ever find another planet similar enough to ours to live on – have come another step closer to being solved, today. The latest exciting Kepler Space Telescope planet-hunting discovery was announced by NASA this …