• Virgin Galactic: Tourism has Started

    We knew the day was coming, and it took place this week. Virgin Galactic is now open for business for interested space tourists. Virgin Galactic’s “Galactic 02” mission brought six individuals into space on Thursday, which included three private passengers. Each of these passengers is believed to have paid between $250,000 to $450,000 per seat…

  • Russia Returns to the Moon

    Russia’s Luna-25 mission has begun with the successful lift-off of the Soyuz 2.1 rocket yesterday (2:11 a.m. on Friday Moscow time or Thursday at 7:10 pm EDT). After its planned arrival on August 21, Luna-25 will be searching for water at the lunar south pole. The mission was off and then on again over the years…

  • Pic of the Week: Glowing Galaxy NGC 6684

    This week’s image is from NASA/European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the glowing galaxy NGC 6684, which is around 44 million light-years from Earth. This oddly shaped galaxy is explained on the ESA’s website: Lenticular galaxies like NGC 6684 (lenticular means lens-shaped) possess a large disc but lack the prominent spiral arms…

  • Space Stories: Fast-Spinning Martians, Artemis 3 Mission Issues, and an Ancient Star Cluster

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —Space.com : “Mars is Spinning Faster and its Days are Getting Shorter. Scientists Aren’t Sure Why“ The length of Mars’ day is shortening by three-quarters of a millisecond each year as the planet’s rotation spins up, according to new results from NASA’s InSight lander…Planetary scientists are not entirely sure why this…

  • Television: Singing with Star Trek

    If you are following Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, then you may have already encountered episode 9 of the second season, titled “Subspace Rhapsody.” Should you have missed it, then you are in for a treat because this is the first Star Trek musical episode. And it is fun. For just a taste, check out…

  • Space Quote: NASA Funding May Not Be What You Think It Is

    “While NASA’s programs are very popular and highly visible, we really don’t spend much on our space agency. In 2022, the U.S. treasury took in revenues of $4.9 trillion and then charged up another $1.4 trillion so it could spend a whopping $6.3 trillion. Of that largesse NASA received an historically generous appropriation of $24…

  • Where is This? August 6, 2023 Quiz

    Take a look at the image above. Can you determine where this image originated? Take a guess and then check your answer by going to the “Where is This? The Answer Sheet” page.

  • Voyager 2 is Still Talking to Us

    After two weeks with no word, Voyager 2 is back to communicating with us as it continues its journey beyond our solar system. The whole incident started when NASA sent a bad command, but all is well. Voyager 2 first left Earth back in August 1977 and exited the solar system in December 2018. Like…

  • A Day in Astronomy: Launch of the Phoenix Mars Lander

    On this day in 2007, NASA launched the Phoenix Mars Lander from Cape Canaveral towards the Red Planet. The lander had two key objectives: (1) to study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) to search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary. The lander set…

  • Pic of the Week: Herbig-Haro 46/47

    This week’s image is from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows the formation of new stars 1,470 light-years away that will take millions of years to form. Here is a partial description of what you are seeing from NASA (visit the link for the full desciption): NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured…