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, Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency, Exploration, International Cooperation, International Space Station, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), NASA, Space and Science, Space Research, Uncategorized
NASA’s Mission Control focused Christmas Day activities on restoring thermal control systems aboard the six person International Space Station to normal operations. Those efforts were to be followed by a return of powered equipment throughout the six...
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 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 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 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...
Dec 4, 2013 | Blog, Comets, Education Station, European Space Agency, Exploration, International Cooperation, Kids Space, Our Solar System, Space and Science
Rosetta, Europe’s comet chaser is about to get a wake-up call. Early next year — on January 20th — the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft will yawn to life from its 957-day hibernation. For the outbound probe, it’s the beginning of an eventful...
Nov 22, 2013 | Blog, Education Station, Exploration, International Cooperation, Kids Space, Mars, NASA, Space and Science
Two spacecraft are headed for Mars: NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (MAVEN) and the Indian Space Research Organization’s Mangalyaan probe, also called Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). MAVEN was hurled Marsward on November 18 and is on track to arrive...
Nov 20, 2013 | Ask the Experts — Answers, Asteroid Exploration, Benefits of Space Exploration, Blog, Education Station, Exploration, International Cooperation, Kids Space, Multimedia, NASA, Our Solar System, Planet Earth, Space and Science, Space Research, Why Space
That Feb. 15 asteroid that burst over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk has reset thinking regarding damage caused by smaller space rocks. Also, there may be more small asteroids than formerly thought. These findings and other research observations are on view tonight...
Nov 19, 2013 | Blog, Comets, Education Station, Exploration, Kids Space, Our Solar System, Space and Science, The Sun
Scientists are reporting that Comet ISON appears to have lost individual fragments in the past days. Images taken of the speedy object show two wing-shaped features in the comet’s atmosphere. The researchers’ analyses show two striking features within the comet’s...