March 9th, 2015
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Thanks to two Mars orbiters, a landing site for NASA’s InSight Mars lander has been selected: NASA has now picked as the prime landing site one location in Elysium Planitia, a region where ancient lava flows cover the ground. The landing-site selection process evaluated four candidate locations selected in 2014. The Interior Exploration using Seismic […]
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An impressive sculpture is now in place at the main entrance of New Mexico’s Spaceport America. Artist Otto Rigan has created GENESIS – a multi-ton sculpture that is 40 feet wide, 23 feet high and 5 feet deep. GENESIS is fabricated from steel and cast glass. The finish of the artwork will continue to patina over time. […]
China is reporting new progress in shaking out procedures required for rocketing back to Earth samples from the Moon. China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) noted the progress over the weekend, according to the state-run Xinhuanet news agency. The service module from a previous experimental lunar craft mission was […]
The International Space Station. A comet. The Moon. They all sport distinctive odors. The scent of science off Earth is the topic of a new video produced by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society. In episode 15 of Speaking of Chemistry, host Matt Davenport sticks […]
Looking for life on other planets usually relies on chemical detection. But that might be limited or even irrelevant to alien biology. However, motion is a trait of all life, and can be used to identify microorganisms without any need of chemical foreknowledge. Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) have […]
Book Review: Living Among Giants – Exploring and Settling the Outer Solar System by Michael Carroll; Book Publisher: Springer; $34.99 (Hardcover); 2015. Here is a fascinating and unique look at the outer Solar System, masterfully detailed in words and artwork regarding planned and imagined future human exploration and possible colonization. Carroll is a prominent prize-winning […]
A new story from me posted on SPACE.com today: Dealing with Asteroid Threats: UN Completes First Planning Phase by Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist March 06, 2015 07:30am ET Go to: http://www.space.com/28755-dangerous-asteroids-united-nations-team.html
Research stations in Antarctica are gearing up to study how humans adapt to living in faraway, isolated locales – useful information to help orchestrate long-duration sojourns in space and setting up habitats on the Moon and Mars. Halley Research Station in Antarctica is hosting key research to understand human adaptation to space travel. Depending on […]
Close-up images of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko have been taken by the Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) on the Rosetta spacecraft during a recent overflight. Rosetta is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Recent images show the comet’s terrain – abruptly terraced steps separating flat […]
“We are about to…bloon” is part of a campaign request for dollars to help record the first-ever spherical video of an eclipse from the stratosphere. On March 20th of this year there will be a total solar eclipse. A unique feature of this event is that the Moon’s shadow will sweep over the North Pole […]
