Asteroid with active past
While studying a meteorite from Vesta, geoscientists found evidence that planet-like dynamic processes also occurred in the asteroid. Simulations by scientist Gregor Golabek from ETH Zurich confirmed this assumption.
Posted: Jan 24th, 2013
Read moreRevolutionary theory of dark matter
The universe abounds with dark matter. Nobody knows what it consists of. Physicists have now launched a very hard mathematical explanation that could solve the mystery once and for all.
Posted: Jan 24th, 2013
Read moreThe 3D fireworks of a star
In 1901 the star GK Persei gave off a powerful explosion that has not stopped growing and astonishing ever since. Now a team of Spanish and Estonian astronomers has reconstructed the journey of the emitted gas in 3D which, contrary to predictions, has hardly slowed down its speed of up to 1,000 km/s after all this time.
Posted: Jan 24th, 2013
Read moreGrad student to build infrared camera for nanosatellite space mission
Michael Veto, a third-year graduate student in the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University, has been chosen to build an infrared and visible light camera system that will launch on a space satellite.
Posted: Jan 24th, 2013
Read moreNational Space Society launches "Our Future in Space" Kickstarter campaign (w/video)
The National Space Society (NSS) has just launched a campaign on the popular Kickstarter internet platform for the creation of a cutting-edge film about the ways in which all of humanity benefits from the expansion of space exploration and development.
Posted: Jan 23rd, 2013
Read moreSounding rocket flight provides important clues to coronal heating, and points the way to future solar missions
A NASA sounding rocket flight in 2012 captured five minutes of the highest-resolution images ever taken of the Sun's million-degree outer atmosphere, the corona. The new images have provided tantalizing hints of another mechanism that likely contributes to the heating of the solar corona.
Posted: Jan 23rd, 2013
Read moreSetting the dark on fire
A new image from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile shows a beautiful view of clouds of cosmic dust in the region of Orion. While these dense interstellar clouds seem dark and obscured in visible-light observations, APEX's LABOCA camera can detect the heat glow of the dust and reveal the hiding places where new stars are being formed. But one of these dark clouds is not what it seems.
Posted: Jan 23rd, 2013
Read moreBest ever measurement of how the universe has cooled since the Big bang
Astronomers have put the Big bang theory through a tough new test - by measuring the temperature of the universe when it was half as old as it is now.
Posted: Jan 23rd, 2013
Read moreU.S. company aims to 'harvest' asteroids
A U.S. company said Tuesday it plans to send a fleet of spacecraft into the solar system to mine asteroids for metals and other materials in the hopes of furthering exploration of the final frontier.
Posted: Jan 22nd, 2013
Read morePhoenix program hopes to repurpose retired satellites (w/video)
Inserting new capabilities into a satellite is no simple task. Doing so as that satellite hurdles through space 22,000 miles above the Earth is a bit more challenging. DARPA's Phoenix program, which hopes to repurpose retired satellites while they remain in orbit, seeks to fundamentally change how space systems could be designed here on earth and then sustained once in space.
Posted: Jan 22nd, 2013
Read moreBetelgeuse braces for a collision
Multiple arcs are revealed around Betelgeuse, the nearest red supergiant star to Earth, in this new image from ESA's Herschel space observatory. The star and its arc-shaped shields could collide with an intriguing dusty 'wall' in 5000 years.
Posted: Jan 22nd, 2013
Read moreNASA announces Space Station Science Challenge winners
Students from two schools, one in Iowa and the other in New York, are the winners of the International Space Station (ISS) Science Challenge, NASA announced Friday.
Posted: Jan 22nd, 2013
Read moreNASA to test Bigelow expandable module on Space Station
NASA announced a newly planned addition to the International Space Station that will use the orbiting laboratory to test expandable space habitat technology. NASA has awarded a $17.8 million contract to Bigelow Aerospace to provide a Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), which is scheduled to arrive at the space station in 2015 for a two-year technology demonstration.
Posted: Jan 22nd, 2013
Read moreNew evidence indicates auroras occur outside our solar system
University of Leicester planetary scientists have found new evidence suggesting auroras - similar to Earth's Aurora Borealis - occur on bodies outside our solar system.
Posted: Jan 21st, 2013
Read moreMartian underground could contain clues to life's origins
Minerals found in the subsurface of Mars, a zone of more than three miles below ground, make for the strongest evidence yet that the red planet may have supported life.
Posted: Jan 20th, 2013
Read moreA microquasar makes a giant manatee nebula
A new view of a 20,000-year old supernova remnant demonstrates the upgraded imaging power of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and provides more clues to the history of this giant cloud that resembles a beloved endangered species, the Florida Manatee.
Posted: Jan 20th, 2013
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