NASA scientists have discovered a thin strip of oxygen in the atmosphere of Dione, one of Saturn’s 60 moons. It seems to be a rare case of oxygen existing without the support of live organisms.
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The space agency’s Biosciences Division has created a medical tool for astronauts that stands to benefit millions of Earth-bound patients by improving a wide range of treatments.
In what should be a boom time for alien-oriented astronomers, given NASA’s recent discovery of an abundance of exoplanets, budget crises are holding back new projects that hold promise.
2012 is shaping up to be the year of the solar storm. In late January, the largest solar storm in years erupted, sending a cloud of particles streaming from the Sun toward […]
The private space company SpaceX has successfully launched a rocket that will soon carry supplies to the International Space Station. Its ultimate goal is a manned mission to Mars.
While private enterprise is not going to take us back to the Moon or to Mars, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says there is still a role for these companies to play.
Although some counterintuitive thinking was necessary to realize that planet GJ 1214b is full of water, scientists now believe there is a greater hope for extraterrestrial life than ever before.
Why would so many people take time off from their smart phones to watch the Transit of Venus through a telescope? According to Bill Nye, it is our human desire to explore. If we ever lose that desire, we’re not going to move forward as a species.
Another technical malfunction from the Russian space program has delayed a manned mission to the International Space Station. NASA desperately wants a private space rocket.
Breakthrough ideas don’t happen overnight. Origins of Species was published in 1859, 28 years after Darwin first boarded HMS Beagle;James Joyce spent seventeen years writing Finnegans Wake;and when Edison filed […]
The winds of stellar-mass black hole have been clocked at 20 million miles per hour. Curiously, scientists say the winds carry away as much matter as the black hole draws in.
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, says that commercial flights could begin flying to Mars in thirty years time. In forty years, many people could afford to buy a ticket, using some savings, of course.
If you saw Martin Scorcese’s film Hugo you will no doubt remember the homage to the iconic 1902 Georges Méliès film A Trip to the Moon. The film depicts a lunar […]
Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have simulated exploding a one-megaton nuclear bomb against an asteroid 500 meters in diameter. The results are encouraging.
Building on work of the Kepler mission, which has discovered Earth-sized exoplanets, NASA is funding three new projects that will carry our search for habitable worlds even further.
By Peadar Coyle It is said that education is something people have strong opinions about. A growing literature has emerged around randomized evaluations of interventions, most notably Esther Duflo’s work on […]
While space exploration seems like a job only for companies with enormous resources, NASA is increasingly turning to small businesses for innovative ideas in exchange for research contracts.
With Santorum, Romney and Paul taking the most votes in the Iowa Caucus, where do they stand on space exploration and the future of NASA? Will other candidates make space an issue?
The shuttle program having been terminated and a budget crunch looming, the national space program lacks a clear purpose. One astronomer says NASA should focus on saving the planet.
Mars’ Gale crater was chosen from over thirty potential landing sites for when Curiosity, NASA’s most ambitious Mars rover ever, touches down in 2012. What makes it so special?
This February, the International Space Station will receive its first privately-built visitor, an unmanned Dragon capsule built by SpaceX, which eventually will carry astronauts aboard.
The largest solar storm in seven years is expected to peak tomorrow, threatening GPS signals and the electrical grid. The cloud of particles streaming from the sun is headed for […]
Instead of landing a craft on a comet, scientists want to study space rocks by firing a harpoon at them. The harpoon’s tip will collect rock samples and return them to Earth for study.
BRAVO to the Russian scientists who breached Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica, which is over 2 miles below the surface. This is quite a feat of engineering […]
An idea which devastated many of my previous assumptions has implications for important views many of us hold. It also indicates the underlying basis of this blog itself. Investigating what […]
Scientists have discovered the smallest exoplanets yet known, and both represent the closest we have come to finding Earth’s twin. Using NASA’s Kepler telescope, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for […]
Future missions to space should concentrate on eliminating threats to Earth, expanding civilization beyond our planet and harvesting extraterrestrial energy resources.
If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute. So goes the saying that is loosely attributed to Mark Twain. The same cannot be said of the […]
SETI, or the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, could be used to look for evidence of alien technology on the surface of the moon. Sure, it’s a long shot. But what if we found something?
In the last four months, three large spacecraft have fallen to Earth, including a Russian probe loaded with toxic fuel. As low-Earth atmosphere gets more crowded, who is looking out for us?