Whenever there’s news of an asteroid expected to pass closely by Earth (like this one did on Halloween 2015) at least one person will ask “what if it hit the Moon?” — as if that’s a scenario that somehow all of the astronomers around the world who specialize in near-Earth objects failed to take into…
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Mars is Tearing its Moon Apart
Phobos, the largest — yet at just 16 miles wide still quite tiny — moon of Mars is getting ripped apart by the gravitational pull of its parent planet… and it bears the scars to show it, scientists have determined. Long parallel grooves that wrap around the surface of Phobos are thought to be stress fractures…
Just Your Typical Everyday View of a Mountain on Another Planet. NBD.
Of course, one of the amazing things about this image is that it IS pretty much something we can see every day, thanks to NASA’s roving robot on Mars! This is a mosaic of seven raw images acquired by Curiosity’s Mastcam on May 11, 2015 – aka mission Sol 981. The view is looking east toward…
A Profile Portrait of Tethys
Here’s a beautiful view of Saturn’s moon Tethys (pronounced TEE-this) captured by the Cassini spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera on May 9, 2015. The moon’s 250-mile Odysseus crater can be seen along the right limb there, illuminated by sunlight, while the left side is lit by the dimmer reflected light from Saturn. Tethys itself is 662 miles (1,065…
This NASA Employee “Nose” How to Keep the Space Station Stink-Free
In your home on Earth, if something smells bad all you have to do is open the windows to let in some fresh air. But on astronauts’ homes in space – whether it’s the ISS, on board a Soyuz TMA, or, one day, inside the Orion capsule – that luxury isn’t an option. All the air available for…
PHA PSA: There’s No Need to Worry About Friday’s Asteroid Pass
It happens every time: an asteroid is slated to make a perfectly safe pass by Earth on its route around the Sun, like everyone else, but the tabloid “news” sites take the opportunity to start screaming bloody horror about the upcoming “near miss” and “terrified” NASA scientists etc. etc. It’s awfully tiring and even more predictable than…
Watch Original Footage From the Very First Spacewalk
On March 18, 1965, the first extravehicular activity – or EVA – in space was conducted by Russian cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, who spent ten minutes outside his Vokshod 2 spacecraft in Earth orbit. Leonov’s historic spacewalk paved the way for all future EVAs, from Ed White’s first American EVA on June 3 of the same…
Have the Best-Laid Plans of MarsOne Finally Gone Awry?
Just one month after the announcement of the 100 “finalists” selected by MarsOne – a Dutch nonprofit company that’s promising to establish a permanent colony on the Red Planet by 2025 – a scathing exposé has been published online that reveals some of the behind-the-scenes processes that have been going on for applicants, as described by selected finalist Dr….
Suspected Hydrothermal Activity on Enceladus Raises Hopes for Life
Ever since their discovery by the Cassini spacecraft in 2005, the plumes of icy particles that are being fired into space from deep gashes along the southern pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus have intrigued planetary scientists and astronomers immensely. Here we have a world in our own Solar System, relatively not so far away, where…
Beyond the Edge of Jupiter: Europa Rising
One of the most beautiful images of Jupiter and its ice-covered moon Europa was actually taken by the New Horizons spacecraft destined for Pluto! The view above was captured by New Horizon’s LORRI imager from a distance of 1.4 million miles from Jupiter on Feb. 28, 2007 just after it made its closest pass of…
The Next Chapter of Philae’s Big Adventure is Here!
If you’ve been following the animated adventures of Rosetta and Philae from the European Space Agency you may have been wondering when the next episode of Philae’s big adventure would be coming. Well it’s here, and you can find out (again) what happened to the little lander on November 12, 2014 when it made its…
A Glorious View of Comet 67P’s Jets
Dusty iceballs left over from the birth of the Solar System, comets are most famously known for their tails: long diffuse veils of ejected gas and reflective frozen material streaming out from their nucleus millions of miles away from the Sun. And even though we’ve typically been seeing it as a rugged rubble pile, Rosetta’s…
Lights in the Dark 