• KSC: Upcoming Launch Schedule & More

    If you are interested in what is being launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), you can easily view this information at this website. For example, on May 19th, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner will be tested in orbit as it becomes another candidate to resupply the International Space Station. The site also highlights other interesting…

  • Growing Options in Moon Dust

    Speaking of moon dust, it seems scientists have found that they can grow plants in lunar soil. This is quite a surprise given the nature of moon dust. It would seem to be an even greater feat than growing plants in Martian soil. NASA has reported that scientists at the University of Florida have successfully…

  • Space Quote: A Mature Rocket Market?

    “The launch industry is at a point where the technology is so mature that it may not be necessary to have the U.S. government invest in it… It may be we’re at a tipping point with this rocket.” -Statement by Dan Goldin, a former NASA administrator, regarding NASA’s expenditures on the Space Launch System (SLS)…

  • The Black Hole Sagittarius A*

    The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array linking together eight existing radio observatories across the planet, has created the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Named Sagittarius A* after a radio signal coming from a location in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius (the A…

  • Pic of the Week: The Cat’s Paw Nebula

    This week’s image is from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website. It was the picture of the day for May 10, 2022. This is the story that goes with the image: Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created…

  • Do You Have Moon Dust in Your Portfolio?

    With the drop in the stock market and fall of cryptocurrency, maybe it is time to expand the portfolio into some new areas. You can always consider moon dust, a small sample of which sold last month for about $500,000 when auctioned at Bonhams. The sample in question was from the Apollo 11 lunar mission…

  • Mars Sample Return: Do You Have Comments?

    NASA and the European Space Agency are still looking for comments on the process to return Martian rock samples to Earth. Of the six steps needed to collect and return the samples (see graphic above), only the first step is currently underway with the Perseverance Rover exploring Mars. Now we need to get those samples home.…

  • Video: The Problem With “The Rare Earth Hypothesis”

    Cool Worlds Lab has another great video out, this time discussing the Rare Earth Hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes that a multitude of factors are necessary for life to develop in the universe, and the program goes deeper into a few of these factors, including the need for: A magnetosphere; Plate tectonics; A large moon; Impacts…

  • Profile: Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport

    When you think of NASA space launches you most likely think of Cape Canaveral in Florida, but what about Virginia? The Eastern Shore of Virginia hosts the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), which is currently being used for resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS). Created by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1995 at the…

  • Hubble and the Unexpected Asteroids

    The Hubble Space Telescope’s old data still holds some secrets. The European Space Agency (ESA) has reported that astronomers have found 1,031 unidentified asteroid trails in earlier data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The asteroids were located by the Hubble Asteroid Hunter project, which defines the project in this way: …we use archival images…