Spacecraft
Sub-orbital, orbital, lunar, interplanetary and interstellar vehicles designed to navigate space- Explore more »
Fear and Dread
In 45 years of photographing Mars up close, no spacecraft had ever gotten a picture of both its moons, Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Dread), together—until last month.The High Resolution Stereo Camera on Europe's Mars Express orbiter took advantage of a rare alignment to snap this image of the two moon...
December 11, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Another Moon-forming collision?
A recent discovery from the Spitzer Space Telescope may yield new insight into the origin of our own Moon. Although this discovery was in the news some time ago, the advent of the Augustine report and the LCROSS mission results have eclipsed it.The Spitzer Telescope found evidence for a planetary ...
December 07, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Saturn, Selenokhod, and Scott Speicher
Today's offering is a post-Thanksgiving smorgasbord of stories (okay, I'll stop with the alliteration).
First, a lovely NASA video of an aurora shimmering above Saturn, with commentary by Caltech planetary scientist Andy Ingersoll, who's been exploring the outer solar system since the Pioneer 10 ...
November 30, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
A Rainbow on the Moon
Five weeks ago a crater from the LCROSS impact formed on the Moon. The pre-impact build-up had been sensational, but the actual event was largely invisible to observers on Earth. It was a different story on the Moon. The slowly growing impact ejecta curtain threw water ice particles and vapor far...
November 14, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
As the World Turns
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft took these spectacular views of a crescent Earth last week during its final close fly-by. The first frame starts at a distance of 683,000 miles. The last was taken from 198,000 miles.
November 14, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Light Sails and Laser Beams
The history of solar sailing is basically the story of Charlie Brown and the football. It remains a great concept, a technology that could theoretically take us to the stars. But for all their promise, actual solar sail missions tend to end in failure, usually before they even begin, and often thro...
November 13, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Water on the Moon, For Real
Congratulations and apologies are due. The LCROSS team, who endured much grumbling from Internet viewers after last month's crash into the moon failed to produce a big visible plume, is reporting what they say is clear evidence of water in a lunar crater. Not just a thimbleful, either—at least 24 ...
November 13, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Here Comes Rosetta...Again
You must need patience to work on Europe's Rosetta comet mission. Launched in 2004, the spacecraft won't arrive at its main destination, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, until 2014. That's longer than New Horizons is taking to get to Pluto. The reason is that it requires a lot of energy to meet up ...
November 12, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Freeing Spirit
NASA's Mars rover prepares to escape the worst trouble of its life.
November 09, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
How the Spaceship Got Its Shape
In the 1950s Harvey Allen solved the problem of atmospheric entry. But first he had to convince his colleagues.
November 2009 |
By Andrew Chaikin
Caves on the Moon?
The science team of the Japanese Kaguya mission have just published a paper claiming to have found an opening to a cave on the Moon. Such a discovery is a potentially important development for future lunar habitation. Lava tubes are large caves created during the volcanic eruption of a very fluid...
October 27, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Fireball Over Indonesia
The Near-Earth Object office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports on an October 8 fireball over Indonesia, with a link (below) to a local TV news story.Fireballs are dramatic, but not as rare as you'd think. An object this size (about 10 meters in diameter) comes along every few years, on av...
October 26, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Paradigms Lost
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.In his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn described two t...
October 23, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Big Foot Was Here
There's no shortage of meteorites that have slammed into our planet since its creation. The vast majority of the craters they've left have eroded away or slowly sunk into the Earth through the process of subduction. Still, the Earth Impact Database, the list of confirmed impact craters, maintained ...
October 20, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
1966: The (Real) First Moon Landing
While scientists on the LCROSS mission puzzle over why none of the world's telescopes apparently saw squat during last week's much-ballyhooed lunar impact (although it now appears the spacecraft did), here's a happier story.The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter recently took this lonely photo of the Sur...
October 16, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
The Coming Crash
Friendly warning: Do not be in the moon's Cabeus Crater tomorrow morning. At 7:31 eastern time, a giant, two-and-a-half ton empty rocket stage will come crashing down from the sky at 1.5 miles a second. Four minutes later, another, smaller spacecraft will hit near the same spot. What the...? Ahh, i...
October 08, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Space Exploration Sets Sail on Lunar Water
Water is an extremely useful substance in space. The recent finding of water on the Moon has generated considerable comment in the space community; a quick search on Google using the phrase “lunar water” returns over 7.66 million hits. Lunar water’s significance lies not in its role as a medium f...
October 04, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Water, water everywhere….
The extreme dryness of the Moon is established scientific dogma. The study of Apollo rock and soil samples pretty much had convinced scientists that the Moon has no water. Because its surface is in a vacuum and experiences extreme temperature swings at the equator (from -150° to 100° C), the Moon ...
September 25, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Phobos grunts
It's the biggest open secret in the space community: the Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt will not be leaving for the Red Planet this year, as scheduled, and will have to wait for 2011 when the orbits of Earth and Mars synch up again.The Russian space agency Roscosmos, which is responsible for the e...
September 24, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
The rivers of Titan
If I were running the space program—which is unlikely, I admit—Saturn's moon Titan would be very high on the list of destinations for the next major planetary mission. Sure, Mars is appealing, largely because of its similarity to Earth.But take a look at this radar image of Titan's northern polar r...
September 16, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
