Scattered on the coasts of Antarctica's empty and icy expanse are research stations that resemble villages. The largest of them is McMurdo Station, a research hamlet that houses scientists studying the continent's glaciers, climate and biological life as well as artists, writers and support staff. As the logistics hub for the U.S. Antarctic program, McMurdo has a landing strip and 85 buildings including a radio shack, firehouse and power plant in addition to the dormitor ...read more
New observations of a distant exoplanet and its solar system offer proof of a long-standing astronomical theory: passing stars can perturb planetary systems and change planets’ orbits – for better or worse. Depending on how they pass by, stars can nudge planets into more stable orbits or give them a kick that sends out of the system entirely. And new evidence implies that these kinds of encounters may explain the paths of strange objects in our own solar system, l ...read more
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule successfully completed its first docking with the International Space Station on Sunday morning, following a successful launch Saturday morning. This marks the first time SpaceX has ever docked with ISS under its own power. The Crew Dragon docking went smooth, allaying safety concerns.
New Connections
Previously, the Dragon cargo capsule has merely flown close before being grabbed by a robotic arm under the control of ISS crewmembers. This was SpaceX’s fi ...read more
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule successfully reached outer space at around 2 a.m. EST Saturday morning. Repeated cheers rang out from the crowds at the Kennedy Space Center launch-site as the capsule passed each flight stage.
If the rest of the flight goes well over the next six days, and NASA certifies the capsule is safe, Elon Musk’s rocket company could begin launching astronauts into orbit this summer. That would mark the first time a private company has launched a human into orbit ...read more
(Inside Science) -- Shifting, slipping and colliding tectonic plates played an essential role in the emergence and evolution of life on Earth. Such tectonic activity generated volcanoes that spewed carbon dioxide and other gases into the air. Rain brought the gases down to Earth, where they were pushed underground again by moving plates. For billions of years the cycle has regulated the climate and stabilized the temperature, which helped enable life to arise.
Plate tectonics like what's ...read more
High in the cloud forests of Costa Rica, a distinct chirping sound ripples across the landscape. This high-pitched staccato refrain trills not from birds, but mice. Now researchers have found that the tiny rodents making these sounds, known as Alston’s singing mice, take turns belting out their tunes much in the same way people take turns when they talk to each other. The discovery could shed light on communication problems in human speech.
Some 10 percent of the Americans suffer from ...read more
SpaceX’s Dragon Crew Capsule is set to launch from Cape Canaveral in a pivotal test flight for human-crewed missions that could happen as soon as this summer. The only passengers for this mission are a mannequin and some cargo for the International Space Station. It will dock on Sunday, stay for five days, and then depart before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean on March 8.
This flight is a milestone for NASA and for SpaceX. NASA has been without a domestic carrier for t ...read more
Apollo 9 launched 50 years ago, on March 3, 1969, and it might be the most important but least celebrated of the early Apollo missions. In fact, it was so important to NASA’s ultimate lunar landing goal that the space agency had a series of contingency missions in place to ensure it could get as much data as possible if something went wrong.
Apollo 9’s mission wasn’t necessarily glamorous. Commander Jim McDivitt, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Dave Scott, and Lunar Module Pilot ...read more
Science fiction is a genre committed to the concept of "run before you can walk." Long before anyone knew whether heavier-than-air flight was possible, writers were imagining travel to other planets. By the time interplanetary space probes were a reality in the 1960s, the storytellers had long since moved on to thinking interstellar.
Today, two or three generations of happy nerds have grown up in a world saturated with science fiction TV shows and movies featuring the word "star" in their tit ...read more
