Dec 28, 2013 | Blog, Education Station, Exploration, Kids Space, Mars, NASA, NASA News, Space and Science
Mars is a busy place! NASA’s Curiosity rover, the most technologically advanced rover ever built, landed in Mars’ Gale Crater the evening of Aug. 5, 2012 Pacific Daylight Time using a series of complicated landing maneuvers never before attempted. Curiosity has been...
Dec 25, 2013 | Benefits of Space Exploration, Blog, Education Station, Exploration, Kids Space, NASA, Our Solar System, Pluto, Space and Science
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is speeding quickly toward the first flyby of Pluto and its moons in July 2015. The real spacecraft – developed at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland – is about the size and shape of a grand piano. The nuclear...
Dec 22, 2013 | Blog, Education Station, Exploration, Multimedia, NASA, Planet Earth, The Moon, Why Space
In December of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to leave our home planet and travel to another body in space. But as crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders all later recalled, the most important thing they discovered was Earth....
Dec 21, 2013 | Ask the Expert, Benefits of Space Exploration, Blog, Education Station, Exploration, International Space Station, Kids Space, Multimedia, NASA, Planet Earth
Check out your “app”titude this holiday! Orbit Logic has announced that their SpyMeSat iPhone app is now keeping track of Santa’s helper – Starkey the Space Elf – who travels through space helping Santa make sure children are on their best behavior! The SpyMeSat app...
Dec 19, 2013 | Benefits of Space Exploration, Blog, Education Station, Exploration, International Cooperation, Kids Space, MESSENGER, NASA, Our Solar System, Space and Science
Hellish Mercury may not be as tranquil as “Strawberry Fields Forever” but that song’s creator, the late Beatle, John Lennon, and the Sun-baked world are now tied together. Crater Lennon is one of ten impact craters on the planet Mercury that have been assigned names...
Dec 16, 2013 | Blog, China, Education Station, Exploration, International Cooperation, Kids Space, NASA, Space Race, The Moon
Previously taken NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) images of the area in which China’s Chang’e 3 landed on the Moon December 14 have been matched up with descent images acquired by the Chang’e 3 lander as it dove down onto the lunar surface. According to imaging...
Dec 11, 2013 | Blog, Book Reviews, Education Station, European Space Agency, Exploration, Kids Space, Mars, MESSENGER, NASA, Our Solar System, Planet Earth, Space and Science, The Moon, Why Space
Alien Seas – Oceans in Space by Michael Carroll, Rosaly Lopes (Editors); Springer, New York; $29.99 (hardcover); 2013. Thanks to the editors for this captivating “wet look” at an under-appreciated aspect of planets and moons in our celestial neighborhood – those “seas...
Dec 8, 2013 | Blog, Education Station, Exploration, International Cooperation, Kids Space, Mars, Multimedia, Space Research
The planet Mars may be on the receiving end of a “Time Capsule of Humanity” orchestrated by an international team of university students. The students are proposing to fly their time capsule to Mars via a CubeSat platform. This vehicle would carry a unique payload: a...
Dec 6, 2013 | Blog, China, Education Station, Exploration, Kids Space, The Moon
China’s Chang’e 3 lunar probe has successfully entered lunar orbit. Braking into a circular orbit around the Moon, the spacecraft is set to attempt a soft landing on moonscape in mid-December. According to the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC) the craft is in a...
Dec 5, 2013 | Ask the Expert, Blog, Education Station, Exploration, International Cooperation, Kids Space, Mars, NASA, Space and Science
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has surpassed 100,000 zaps of its ChemCam laser instrument. ChemCam zaps rocks with a high-powered laser to determine their composition and carries a camera that can survey the Martian landscape. The ChemCam concept was developed at Los...