Science Art: New Zealand’s South Island, by Samantha Cristoforetti, 2022.
Here’s a picture of a distinctive bit of geography. There are hobbits down there, and members of Split Enz and The Chills, and some of […]
space exploration
U.S. Senate is doing something to try to clean up space junk.
The Payload newsletter reports on a new law being debated by American legislators. The ORBITS act is intended to create new technologies for ADR – […]
Private space company eyes mission to seek life on Venus.
Vice reports on Rocket Lab’s plans to use privately funded spacecraft, supported by a research team at MIT, to explore the famously inhospitable surface of […]
Exploring alien planets (and Earth) by balloon
Science News looks at the recent breakthroughs in planetary research using an often-overlooked kind of vehicle, a lighter-than-air balloon, as a research platform in alien […]
Voyager 1, the world’s most faraway space probe, is sending back weird signals.
Space.com is calling the mysterious set of signals a “telemetry issue,” and experts say it shouldn’t be surprising that an interstellar ship launched 45 years […]
Pluto might have an underground ocean, if those icy volcanoes are any indication.
Science magazine reports on new conclusions from the New Horizon spacecraft’s 2015 observations of ice volcanoes on Pluto, and what they could mean for the […]
There’s more than one speed of sound on Mars.
Science News describes one of the odd issues facing our robotic exploration of the Red Planet, because sound waves travel differently in the thin atmosphere […]
Russia’s war reaches into space, leaving an American astronaut potentially stranded.
ABC News reports on an unintended consequence of the war in Ukraine that’s creating a tricky situation far overhead. American astronaut Mark Vande Hei, currently […]
Science Art: The Hubble Space Telescope is lifted into the workstands…, 1990
There’s a new space telescope getting ready to do its thing now, but here’s a look back to when the last one was brand new. […]
Somebody’s rocket is about to crash into the moon. We’re not really sure whose.
Space.com introduces a new wrinkle in the growing space-junk problem. There’s so much stuff flying around us, we’re no longer sure where it came from […]
Science Art: Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Lifts Off!, by NASA/Joel Kowsky, 7 Dec 2021
This is another unusual perspective of a space vessel in flight, though slightly less rare than the top-down image posted here on 28 November. We’re […]
Science Art: NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 Mission Patch, by Alexandra Lindgren
A dragonfly in space. Luck, and transformation. This is the symbol for a joint NASA/ESA mission to the ISS, with Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and […]
Science Art: A Dragon Approaches, ESA/NASA, 2021
This is a view of the Dragon spaceship Endurance from an angle most of us never get to see – above the nose cone, which […]
The Russians seem to have blown up one of their satellites, and the ISS is dodging the debris.
There’s going to be more news on this shortly, but a a couple of Near-Earth Orbit tracking services are reporting on the Russian satellite Cosmos […]
James Webb Space Telescope ready for launch.
The BBC reports that, after overcoming plenty of obstacles, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is ready to get into orbit and start gazing […]