• Starliner: Third Time’s the Charm

    Finally, we have another spacecraft that appears capable of bringing astronauts into orbit. After two earlier tries, Boeing’s Starliner was successfully launched on Thursday and then connected with the International Spaced Stations (ISS) today. Now we just need it to undock on Wednesday and safely return. In a press release, Jim Chilton, Boeing’s senior vice…

  • A Day in Astronomy: Pioneer Venus

    On this day in 1978, NASA launched Pioneer Venus from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission had two components: the Pioneer Venus Orbiter that remained in orbit around the planet until 1992 when it entered the Venusian atmosphere and burned up, and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe (known as Pioneer 13) that carried four probes later dropped into the…

  • Pic of the Week: Mars InSight Lander

    NASA recently shared an image showing the accumulation of Martian dust on the solar panels of the Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) Mars lander. The photo above was taken on April 24, 2022. The Mars Insight lander was launched May 5, 2018 to study the interior of Mars. The lander…

  • Supernova: One Ring to Rule Them All?

    Astronomers recently reported that a strange ring just outside of the Milky Way galaxy that may be an intergalactic supernova remnant. SciTechDaily had a story on the discovery first reported in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Initially detected by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), the object (later named J0624–6948) is…

  • The Little Martian Helicopter that Could

    The Washington Post recently posted a story about the great success and potential demise of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter that accompanied the Perseverance Rover to the surface of Mars last year. It has already lasted for more than a year flying multiple missions, yet it may not make it through the Martian winter given the accumulation…

  • 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…