In a bid to monitor Earth better, Nasa has successfully installed and activated its first Earth-observing instrument — the ISS-RapidScat — on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS-RapidScat will monitor ocean winds for climate research as well as weather predictions and hurricane monitoring. The instrument has already begun collecting data. “Its antenna began spinning and it started transmitting and ... Read More »
Boeing and the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation are the winners in the competition to carry American astronauts to the International Space Station, NASA announced on Tuesday. The awards reflect a fundamental shift in NASA’s human spaceflight program, relying on private companies rather than the traditional hands-on approach, in which the space agency designed and operated the spacecraft. The first flights ... Read More »
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Mars, get ready for another visitor or two. This weekend, NASA’s Maven spacecraft will reach the red planet following a 10-month journey spanning 442 million miles. If all goes well, the robotic explorer will hit the brakes and slip into Martian orbit Sunday night. “I’m all on pins and needles. This is a critical event,” NASA’s director ... Read More »
Astronomers using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground observation have found an unlikely object in an improbable place — a monster black hole lurking inside one of the tiniest galaxies ever known. The black hole is five times the mass of the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. It is inside one of the densest ... Read More »
A planet may be causing the star it orbits to act much older than it actually is, according to new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This discovery shows how a massive planet can affect the behavior of its parent star. The star, WASP-18, and its planet, WASP-18b, are located about 330 light-years from Earth. WASP-18b has a mass about ... Read More »
