• Artemis Rocket Launch Planned for August

    NASA said it is ready for a real test of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion capsule after multiple dry-runs. Of course, the tests were not perfect, but NASA said it is ready for the next phase. The latest test was on June 20th. Following that, Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for common exploration…

  • Fire Damages Kitt Peak National Observatory Buildings

    Earlier this month, a lightening strike led to a fire in Baboquivari Mountains in southern Arizona, home of the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO). According to news reports, the telescopes themselves are fine, but four “non-scientific” buildings were lost in the fire. Pro-active fire crews were able to prevent greater damage in the area. This…

  • Pic of the Week: Dwarf Starburst Galaxy Henize 2-10

    This week’s photo is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the Dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10, which lies 34 million light years away. NASA notes that “The bright region at the center, surrounded by pink clouds and dark dust lanes, indicates the location of the galaxy’s massive black hole and active stellar nurseries.” The image below…

  • Podcast: Lori Garver on NASA and Commercial Space

    This week’s StarTalk podcast with Neil deGrasse Tyson included an interview with former Deputy Administrator of NASA, Lori Garver. She is author of a new book, Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, which has a number of reviewer quotes, including the one from Elon Musk below. In addition to…

  • First Photos from James Webb Space Telescope to be Released on July 12th

    NASA recently announced, in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, that the first photos from the James Webb Space Telescope will be released from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center via a televised broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 12, 2022. The first images will also be posted…

  • Space Quotes: Worry about Asteroids, Not Aliens

    “This paper attempts to provide an estimation of the prevalence of hostile extraterrestrial civilizations through an extrapolation of the probability that we, as the human civilization, would attack or invade an inhabited exoplanet once we become a Type-1 civilization in the Kardashev Scale capable of nearby interstellar travel. The estimation is based on the world’s…

  • A Day in Astronomy: Viking 1 Begins Obit of Mars

    On this day in 1976, NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft began its orbit of Mars. Launched in August 20, 1975, it took the Viking 1 spacecraft 11 months to travel to Mars. Viking 1 was a combination of orbiter and landing craft. The attached lander did not land on the Martian surface until July 20th, setting down on…

  • More Studies of the Moon – This Time Volcanoes

    Earlier this month, NASA announced plans to to study volcanoes on the Moon as part of the Artemis Program. The mission, called the Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) investigation, will involve a stationary lander and mobile rover. The mission will entail a 10-day survey of the summit of one of the Gruithuisen Domes to…

  • Nearby Planetary System Discovery: Two Earth-sized Planets

    MIT News reports a star about 33 light years away contains two Earth-like planets, one that is 1.2 times the size of the Earth and the second that is about 1.5 times the size. The discovery of these exoplanets orbiting the M-dwarf star, named HD 260655, came about when scientists combined data from NASA’s Transiting…

  • Pic of the Week: The Helicopter’s Shadow

    This week’s image, and the related animated gif, are from the navigation camera aboard NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 25th flight on April 18, 2022 over the surface of Mars. Here is a little more information from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): The first frame of the clip shows the view about one second…