The crew of Apollo 7, form left to right: Command Module pilot, Don F. Eisele, Commander, Walter M. Schirra Jr. and Lunar Module pilot, Walter Cunningham. (Credit: NASA)
Almost exactly 50 years ago, NASA launched the first crewed Apollo mission into space. The goal was to test the latest spaceship tech, ensuring humans could survive their long trip to the moon, and the expedition also marked the first 3-person American space crew, as well as the first to broadcast a live television f ...read more
Penitentes on the Upper Rio Blanco, Central Andes of Argentina. Such fields of jagged ice could cover Europa’s equatorial latitudes. Arvaki (Wikipedia)
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa has come into the spotlight as one of the likeliest places in the solar system to find Earth-like life. Scientists believe that beneath its icy shell lurks a liquid ocean, perhaps even one that’s relatively warm and hospitable to life. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, currently with a launch date ...read more
(Credit: Mike Mareen/shutterstock)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released a special report Monday on the impact of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC report says that based on humanity’s current use of fossil fuels, they’re highly confident the world will reach those levels between 2030 and 2052. Warming to 1.5C will mean warmer average temperatures and increased flood hazards in some regions as well as biodive ...read more
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, photographed during the first astronaut servicing mission in 1993. (Credit: NASA)
On Friday, NASA’s iconic Hubble Space Telescope, our window into the universe since 1990, went into a protective safe mode after one of its gyroscopes failed.
Hubble was built with six gyroscopes designed to keep the telescope pointed the same way for long periods of time. These six gyroscopes were replaced during a 2009 repair mission to the telescope. But, ove ...read more
The image shows the heliosphere that wraps around the Sun, its planets and far beyond. The heliosheath is the outermost later of the heliosphere, and is where Voyager 2 is traveling through to get it to interstellar space. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
When it comes to space exploration, no one has the Voyager missions beat. On October 5, NASA reported that their Voyager 2 spacecraft is nearing our heliosphere’s outer borders, and could soon enter interstellar space. Data shows that th ...read more
In January 2017, eleven field science advocates gathered in an unlikely location: indoors. These individuals were educators, scientists, and web platform developers participating in the Designing Citizen Science for Both Science and Education workshop, hosted by the Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The workshop focused on georeferenced field studies, which are projects that involve the collection of data organized by location.
Led by ...read more
Brain surgery is not usually something that people actively seek out. However, there may be an exception: the idea of the removal of the amygdala seems to hold a fascination for many people.
Questions about the desirability of an amygdala-free life can be found in many places online. On Quora, there have been many queries about what amygdala removal would entail, and at least one brave user outright asked Can I have my amygdala removed? I came across the question on two other sites within the pa ...read more
(Credit: By Angela Rohde/Shutterstock)
If we humans want to slow down global warming due to carbon emissions, clean energy is the way. But, as with all things, there are cons to go along with those pros. New research reports that installing large-scale wind farms across the country could raise the temperature of the continental United States.
The study, published in the journal Joule, is based on mathematical modeling done by experts at Harvard University. First, the team created a climat ...read more
An artist’s conception of what an orbital lunar station could look like. (Credit: NASA)
It looks like the moon is back in style. Decades after NASA’s last trip to our satellite, both Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin have recently announced plans for lunar landers, and NASA hopes to build a Lunar Orbital-Platform Gateway that would sit in orbit around the moon.
The moon is a logical stepping stone for longer missions to Mars and beyond, and it offers a crucial testing ground for ...read more
Hayabusa2 watches the MASCOT lander descend to the surface of asteroid Ryugu. (Credit: JAXA, Tokyo University, Kochi Univ., Rikkyo Univ., Nagoya Univ., Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji Univ., Aizu Univ., AIST)
In yet another historic feat, Hayabusa2’s MASCOT rover has completed its mission to explore, probe and photograph the surface of asteroid Ryugu. The rover spent three asteroid-days, or 17 Earth-hours, hopping across the asteroid and conducting research with an array of high-pow ...read more
