Since 2012, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced three ‘tsunami waves’ in interstellar space. The most recent, which reached the spacecraft earlier this year, is still propagating outward according to new data. It is the longest-lasting shock wave that researchers have seen in interstellar space.
“Most people would have thought the interstellar medium would have been smooth and quiet. … Read the rest of this article
Seven rare, microscopic interstellar dust particles that date to the beginnings of the solar system are among the samples collected by scientists who have been studying the payload from NASA’s Stardust spacecraft since its return to Earth in 2006. If confirmed, these particles would be the first samples of contemporary interstellar dust.
A team of scientists has been combing through … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s flying saucer-shaped test vehicle is ready to take to the skies from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, for its first engineering shakeout flight.
The first launch opportunity for the test vehicle is June 3, when the launch window opens at 8:30 a.m. HST. The test will be carried live on NASA TV and streamed … Read the rest of this article
The following statement is from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, released March 4 2014, on the Obama Administration’s budget request for the 2015 fiscal year:
“Today, President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2015 budget request for the nation, and there is a lot of good news in it for NASA. The president’s funding plan for America’s space program reaffirms the path … Read the rest of this article
Three NASA science instruments are being prepared for check-out operations aboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, which is set to become the first to orbit a comet and land a probe on its nucleus in November.
Rosetta was reactivated Jan. 20 after a record 957 days in hibernation. U.S. mission managers are scheduled to activate their instruments on the … Read the rest of this article
It was a fairy-tale ending to a tense chapter in the story of the Rosetta space mission this evening as ESA heard from its distant spacecraft for the first time in 31 months.
Rosetta is chasing down Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it will become the first space mission to rendezvous with a comet, the first to attempt a landing on a … Read the rest of this article
With a final, modest, thruster burn yesterday afternoon, ESA’s billion-star surveyor finalised its entry into orbit around ‘L2’, a virtual point far out in space. But how do you orbit nothing? And who can show you how to get there, anyway?
Just after 15:30 GMT (16:30 CET) yesterday, Gaia made a short thruster burn, nudging the galactic survey craft onto … Read the rest of this article
Scifi movies are sometimes criticized when explosions in the void make noise. As the old saying goes, “in space, no one can hear you scream.” Without air there is no sound.
But if that’s true, what was space physicist Don Gurnett talking about when he stated at a NASA press conference in Sept. 2013 that he had heard “the sounds … Read the rest of this article
For NASA and its dozens of missions, data pour in every day like rushing rivers. Spacecraft monitor everything from our home planet to faraway galaxies, beaming back images and information to Earth. All those digital records need to be stored, indexed and processed so that spacecraft engineers, scientists and people across the globe can use the data to understand Earth … Read the rest of this article
A metal 3D-printing revolution is entering space. AMAZE is a recently announced project that aims to perfect the printing of space-quality metal components on Earth and beyond within five years.
3D printing builds a solid object from a series of layers, each one printed on top of the last. This ‘additive manufacturing’ technique produces very complex structures with minimal waste … Read the rest of this article
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