Space exploration News
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One of the most distinguished records in the increasingly-space-bound United States is an astronaut’s cumulative days logged in space.
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Beijing -
China announced the completion of the construction of the world’s largest radio telescope that will boost the global hunt for extraterrestrial life.
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Pasadena -
The latest images of Ceres, taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, show sections of this mysterious dwarf planet in breathtaking detail.
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NASA will be putting on a light show Wednesday night using a barium and strontium lasers to test the viability of some new rocket tech, and to get a glimpse at naturally occurring ion flows.
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Pasadena -
NASA announced in a press release on July 30th that they had found the closest rocky planet outside our solar system. It's only 21 light years away.
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Aberdeen -
A further clue in the search for life on Mars has emerged after a team of scientists discovered traces of methane in Martian meteorites.
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Pasadena -
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft makes what will be its last close approach to Saturn’s oddly shaped moon, Hyperion, today, Sunday, May 31.
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Pasadena -
Trials have now started on NASA’s next piece of Mars wizardry, a stationary lander scheduled to head off to the Red Planet, March 2016.
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Pasadena -
NASA scientists using instrumentation on board NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover have discovered nitrogen on the Martian surface for the first time.
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Green Bank -
As a planet, Venus, shrouded in thick clouds of carbon dioxide, doesn’t lend itself to visual observation. To lift the veil on Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor, spacecraft such as NASA’s Magellan probe use radar to penetrate Venus' clouds.
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Greenbelt -
After a stuttering start before repairs to an out-of-focus lens enabled astronomers to realise the Hubble Space Telescope’s full potential, Hubble has returned a multitude of spectacular images, allowing us to see the Universe as never before seen.
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It isn't the rocky cold surface of Mars that could be humanity's next home. A NASA project wants to make Venus's atmosphere humanity's next home.
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Fairfax -
A group of American researchers suggest astronomers could soon discover exoplanets — planets orbiting other stars — so deformed by gravity that they appear stretched out.
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Man's exploration of Mars started on Nov. 5, 1964 with the launch of the ill-fated Mariner 3 spacecraft. When it died after almost nine hours in flight, Mariner 4 was launched on Nov. 28. It was the first spacecraft to successfully make a flyby of Mars.
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Berne -
The projected landing site where the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta comet lander is due to make comet-fall next week now has a name.
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Moscow -
Officials with the Russian Federal Space Agency have announced plans to begin full-scale Moon exploration within the next 15 to 20 years.
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Moscow -
Planetary geologists report evidence that Jupiter’s moon Europa shows signs of plate tectonics, shaping and moulding the moon’s surface similar to geological activity on Earth.
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The European Space Agency's Rosetta Comet mission has chosen five likely landing sites for its Philae's lander on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The lander is scheduled to descend down to the comet's nucleus in November.
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Arlington -
Hardly a week passes these days without scientists and astronomers reporting on the discovery of a new exoplanet — a planet outwith our solar system.
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Paris -
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) comet-chaser mission, already 10 years in transit, has rendezvoused with its target the 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet. The ESA Rosetta probe enters orbit around the comet today, Wednesday.
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Washington -
NASA’s successor to the Mars Curiosity rover will head to the red planet in 2020 carrying a payload of scientific instruments that will explore Mars as never before.
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Pasadena -
Aided by two NASA telescopes, astronomers have made the most precise calculation yet of the size of an exoplanet — a planet outwith our solar system.
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Littleton -
An innovative NASA space mission with the ambitious aim of collecting samples from an asteroid in 2018 was given the green light, Wednesday.
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Leicester -
New research from an international team of astronomers from the UK's University of Leicester and the University of Arizona sheds light on how stars reaching the end of their useful life and collapsing in on themselves become polluted.
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Mars One, a not-for-profit foundation working to establish the world's first human settlement on the planet Mars, has partnered with Uwingu, a company with the primary mission of creating a personal connection between the world and space exploration.
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NASA hopes to launch a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, the solar system's most likely heavenly body to hold alien life, by 2025.
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Warwick -
The European Space Agency announced Wednesday that a new space-based observatory to search for planets orbiting alien stars will form the third plank of the ESA’s medium-class (M-class) science missions.
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Tucson -
NASA and the Planetary Society have issued a global invitation to individuals to have their names etched on a microchip that will be on board a spacecraft launching in 2016. The spacecraft will rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu two years later.
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Beijing -
China has declared its Chang'e -3 lunar landing “a complete success” after the exploration robot Yutu (Jade Rabbit) and its mother ship photographed each other and sent the images to Earth.
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Bangalore -
India’s Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter spacecraft left Earth orbit early Sunday, at the start of a 300-day trek, covering 680 million kilometers (425 million miles), to Mars.
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Space exploration Image
Europa, Jupiter's ice covered satellite, as seen by the Galileo spacecraft. Europa is about 3,160 kilometers (1,950 miles) in diameter, or about the size of Earth's moon. The image was taken on September 7, 1996, at a range of 677,000 kilometers. Wikimedia Commons
This image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko shows the diversity of surface structures on the comet's nucleus. It was taken by the Rosetta spacecraft's navigation camera on August 7, 2014. At the time, the spacecraft was 65 miles (104 kilometers) away from the 2.5 mile (4 kilometer) wide nucleus. NASA/JPL-Caltech / Image by ESA/Rosetta/MPS
Diagramatic showing location of Horsehead Nebula in relation to surrounding objects ESA / Herschel
The original Lafayette meteorite 'discovered' in a geological collection in 1931, is classed as a Martian meteorite having originated from Mars. Smithsonian Institution
Artists impression of Kepler Space Telescope NASA/JPL
NASA's IRIS solar atmospheric observatory witnessed its strongest Solar Flare on Jan 28 2014, since launching in 2013. NASA
This image is an artist's conception of the binary system WISE J104915.57-531906 with the Sun in the background Credit: Janella Williams, Penn State University.
The diagram shows the locations of star systems closest to our Sun along with dates of discovery.The binary system WISE J104915.57-531906 is the third nearest system to the Sun, and the closest one found in a century. Credit: Janella Williams, Penn State University.
A schematic of a plasma torus around an exoplanet, which is created by the ions injected from an exomoon's ionosphere into the planet's magnetosphere. University of Texas at Arlington
The range of Hasselblad cameras used on Apollo missions to the moon. The Hasselblad to be auctioned, used on the Apollo 15 mission is similar to that shown bottom right. NASA/Lunar and Planetary Institute.
Comparing the size of the James Webb Space Telescope due for launch in 2018 with the Hubble Space Telescope Wikimedia Commons - Bobarino
Valles Marineris on Mars ESA DLR Mars Express
This rendering shows the size of GJ 1214b and another, larger exoplanet compared to Earth and Neptune. Researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope to reveal cloudy weather on the alien world of GJ 1214b. NASA & ESA
NASA's Dawn spacecraft viewed this Cerean crater, which is covered in ridges and steep slopes, called scarps on Dec. 23, 2015. Such likely resulted when the crater partly collapsed during its formation. The curvilinear nature of the scarps resembles those on the floor of Rheasilvia, the giant impact crater on Vesta, which Dawn orbited from 2011 to 2012.
The 20-mile-wide (32-kilometer-wide) crater is located just west of the larger, named crater Dantu at northern mid-latitudes on Ceres. NASA/JPL
Bill Nye and Robert Picardo introduce the first edition of The Planetary Society's new regular update The Planetary Post The Planetary Society via YouTube (Screen Grab)
Envisat image features a cloud-free France acquired this image on 15 August 2009. European Space Agency
This annotated image depicts four of the five potential landing sites for the Rosetta mission's Philae lander. NASA/JPL-Caltech / Image by ESA/Rosetta/MPS
The heliospheric current sheet results from the influence of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the plasma in the interplanetary medium (solar wind). The wavy spiral shape has been likened to a ballerina's skirt. NASA - Werner Heil
Artist's impression of the stationary NASA Mars lander, known by the acronym InSight, studying the interior of Mars. The InSight mission (for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is scheduled to launch in March 2016, landing on Mars 6 months later. NASA/JPL-Caltech
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