Tag: NASA
You may be aware that NASA is one of the federal agencies being affected by the government shutdown; 18,000 workers, 97% of NASA’s employees, will not be reporting to work until Congress works out a solution. But perhaps the most notable furlough isn’t even a human: the Curiosity rover, all the way up on Mars, […]
In August, we noted how researchers from the University of Maryland stirred up some controversy when they said evidence now indicates that the Voyager 1 spacecraft–launched in 1977–has left the Solar System and is cruising around interstellar space complete with a gold plated record detailing man’s existence intended for extraterrestrials. NASA announced on Thursday that […]
In a crucial development towards developing a self-sustaining system for living in space, NASA will begin growing vegetables on the International Space Station this December. Dubbed VEGGIE, the small rig, “filled with a material akin to kitty litter,” will grow six romaine lettuce plants, to be tested and eaten back on earth. Apparently, the biggest […]
Friday evening, NASA will begin its next mission to the moon, launching an unmanned spacecraft with the hopes of studying the satellite’s atmosphere and surface dust. And though the launch, scheduled for 11:27PM, is happening at the Wallops Flight Center on Virginia’s eastern shore, in the right conditions, it may be possible to see it […]
Back in 1977, a team of hip NASA scientists led by astrophysicist Carl Sagan produced two gold-plated copper records featuring a compendium of sounds, images, and illustrations from planet Earth. The 12-inch time capsules were loaded onto twin Voyager spacecraft then launched into space with the hopes that alien life would find the records and […]
As part of NASA’s year-long science experiment, twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly will be very separated for a very long time. Astronaut Scott Kelly will spend one year in residence at the International Space Station while his now retired twin brother Mark will remain on Earth. The concept for the year-long study was proposed to the […]
Today marks the one year anniversary of NASA’s Curiosity rover landing on Mars. According to the space agency, the IRL Wall-e has been very busy sending data: Curiosity has provided more than 190 gigabits of data; returned more than 36,700 full images; fired more than 75,000 laser shots to investigate the composition of targets; collected […]
Because there’s never a bad time for a reminder of how lonely and insignificant our lives are in this vast cold universe we call home, here are two brand new photos of Earth, taken from Saturn and Mercury, respectively. The Saturn photo, above, is fucking breathtaking and beautiful and heart-stopping and makes you want to […]
It also has atmospheric temperatures up to 2,000-degree fahrenheit. And in case you didn’t see it in the headline: Glass Rain! 4,500 MPH winds! This place sounds awesome. NASA discovered the planet, dubbed HD 189733b, in 2005, but recently discovered new facts about its atmosphere with the Hubble telescope. The thing is only 2.9 million miles from its […]
If you’re already over that billion pixel image of Mars we showed you yesterday, here’s your latest high-res space photo fix: NASA and NOAA created this image of the Earth using something called a “VIIRS sensor,” which works kind of like an infrared camera for trees, highlighting any vegetation in lush green and rendering everything else […]
