Space Exploration news

Rover Sees Variable Environmental History at Martian Crater

Opportunity Rover Sees Variable Environmental History at Martian Victoria Crater

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 21, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- One of NASA's two Mars rovers has recorded a compelling saga of environmental changes that occurred over billions of years at a Martian crater.


Refurbished Hubble Space Telescope Ready to Resume Mission of Explorat

Refurbished Hubble Ready to Resume Exploration

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 19, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Hubble Space Telescope has been with us for nearly two decades. In that time, its breathtaking images have captured people’s imaginations and its groundbreaking science has revealed some ...


Astronauts trying to revive Hubble spectrograph (AP)

Stuck bolt, dead battery bedevil Hubble repairs

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 17, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (9) | comments 9

(AP) -- Spacewalkers' specially designed tools couldn't dislodge a balky bolt interfering with repairs Sunday at the Hubble Space Telescope, so they took an approach more familiar to people puttering around ...


Astronauts hook up new camera for Hubble (AP)

Let there be light: Camera hooked up for Hubble

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 14, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 7

(AP) -- A pair of spacewalking astronauts overpowered a stubborn bolt and successfully installed a new piano-sized camera in the Hubble Space Telescope on Thursday, the first step to making the observatory ...


Herschel and Planck space telescopes lift off

Herschel and Planck space telescopes lift off

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 14, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (10) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- At 15:12:02 CEST, at the beginning of a 55-minute launch window, the Herschel and Planck satellite pair lifted off on board an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.


Astronauts grab Hubble, prepare for tough repairs (AP)

Astronauts grab Hubble, prepare for tough repairs

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 13, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 4

(AP) -- Atlantis' astronauts grabbed the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday, then quickly set their sights on the difficult, dangerous and unprecedented spacewalking repairs they will attempt over the next ...


Soft Ground Puts Spirit in Danger Despite Gain in Daily Energy

Spirit rover's wheels stuck in soft Martian dirt

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 12, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The five wheels that still rotate on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit have been slipping severely in soft soil during recent attempts to drive, sinking the wheels about halfway into the ...


SETI@home

SETI@home completes a decade of ET search

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 01, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (32) | comments 9

The SETI@home project, which has involved the worldwide public in a search for radio-wave evidence of life outside Earth, marks its 10th anniversary on May 17, 2009.


Servicing Mission 4 -- the fifth and final visit to Hubble

Servicing Mission 4 -- the fifth and final visit to Hubble

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 01, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- The combination of Hubble's powerful suite of instruments and its position far above the effects of Earth's atmosphere has consistently produced outstanding scientific results for nineteen ...


MESSENGER at Mercury

Magnesium detected in MESSENGER flyby of Mercury (w/Video)

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 30, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 1

NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft served up another curveball to a University of Colorado at Boulder team after a second flyby of the hot inner planet Oct. 6 detected magnesium -- an element created inside exploding ...


Solar wind tans young asteroids

Solar wind tans young asteroids

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 22, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 1

A new study published in Nature this week reveals that asteroid surfaces age and redden much faster than previously thought -- in less than a million years, the blink of an eye for an asteroid. This study ...


Mars explorer says we'll find life on other planets within 10 years

Mars explorer says we'll find life on other planets within 10 years

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 21, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (44) | comments 11

Within 10 years, we'll find life outside Earth -- that's the prediction of Peter Smith, the University of Arizona professor who led NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission.


A Moon based green house

US scientists plan greenhouses on the Moon

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 15, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (11) | comments 1

Astronauts' meals have come a long way from the freeze-dried powders and semi-liquid pastes of decades ago: now US scientists want to grow vegetables in mini-greenhouses on the Moon.


Beyond Apollo: Moon Tech Takes a Giant Leap

Beyond Apollo: Moon Tech Takes a Giant Leap

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 09, 2009 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (13) | comments 12

The flight computer onboard the Lunar Excursion Module, which landed on the Moon during the Apollo program, had a whopping 4 kilobytes of RAM and a 74 KB "hard drive." In places, the craft's outer skin was ...


Earthshine reflects Earth's oceans and continents from the dark side of the moon

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 07, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 5

Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Princeton University have shown for the first time that the difference in reflection of light from the Earth's land masses and oceans can be seen on the dark side of the moon, ...