Space Exploration

You might think of satellites as large, imposing spacecraft that cruise through Earth’s orbit like hulking beasts, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Many modern satellites are tiny in size, but they do lots of very important work, and the International Space Station just dropped another one above Australia. Its mission will be to find missing matter. The mini satellite is called a CubeSat because, well, it’s shaped like a box, and this particular CubeSat is going to peer into the Milky Way and study its halo. What’s a galaxy halo? Well, dear reader, I’m so glad you asked! You see, when it comes to explaining the universe, astronomers have a pretty big problem on their hands. Based on past research and observations, scientists think they have a pretty good idea of how much of the universe if made up of normal matter (that’s what the Earth, the Moon, and even you yourself are made of), dark matter (nobody really knows what this is), and dark energy (a mysterious force t...

Mars 1M Mars 1M spacecraft Mars 1M was a series of two unmanned spacecraft which were used in the first Soviet missions to explore Mars. They were the earliest missions of the Mars program. The Western media dubbed the spacecraft "Marsnik", a portmanteau of Mars and Sputnik. Spacecraft Mars 1M No.1 , known in the west as Marsnik 1, Mars 1960A and Korabl 4, was destroyed in a launch failure on October 10, 1960. In 1962, NASA Administrator James E. Webb informed the United States Congress that NASA believed the mission was an attempt at a Mars flyby probe. Some Soviet scientists involved with the program at that time claim no knowledge of this mission, stating that only the second launch was an intended Mars mission. However, V. G. Perminov, the leading designer of planetary spacecraft at the Lavochkin design bureau, states that this mission was indeed intended for Mars and was identical to the later mission. Mars 1M No.2 , known in the west as Marsni...

Pioneer 5 Pioneer 5  mounted to its  Thor Able  launcher. Mission type Interplanetary space research Operator NASA Harvard designation 1960 Alpha 1 COSPAR ID 1960-001A SATCAT  no. 27 Spacecraft properties Manufacturer TRW Launch mass 43 kilograms (95 lb) Start of mission Launch date March 11, 1960, 13:00:07 UTC Rocket Thor DM-18 Able IV Launch site Cape Canaveral LC-17A End of mission Last contact April 30, 1960 Orbital parameters Reference system Heliocentric Eccentricity 0.1689 Perihelion 0.7061 astronomical units (105,630,000 km; 65,640,000 mi) Aphelion 0.9931 astronomical units (148,570,000 km; 92,310,000 mi) Inclination 3.35 degrees Period 311.6 days Pioneer 5 (also known as Pioneer P-2, and Thor Able 4, and nicknamed the "Paddle-Wheel Satellite") was a spin-stabilized space probe in the NASA Pioneer program used to investigate interplanetary space between the orbits of Earth...

Spotting asteroids has become pretty routine for astronomers working with some of the most powerful telescopes on the planet, but every once in a while a seemingly mundane space rock proves to be something special. Late last year, scientists spotted a brand new asteroid, named it 2017 YE5, and added it to the long, long list of near-Earth objects that have already been observed. Astronomers are now saying that the rock isn’t what it seems to be. In late June the rock made its closest pass of Earth for the next 170 years, so scientists decided to spend a little more time studying it before it heads back out again. When they zoomed in on what they thought was a regular ol’ asteroid what they began to see double. 2017 YE5, it turns out, isn’t one asteroid. It’s two. Twin asteroids are incredibly rare, at least here in our Solar System, and they’re a huge treat for scientists whenever they’re spotted. Sometimes larger asteroids are orbited by much smaller rocks, but “equal mass...

The last time a person visited the  moon  was in December 1972, during NASA's Apollo 17 mission. Over the decades, NASA planned to send people back to the moon but has yet to succeed. Astronauts often say the biggest reasons why humans haven't returned to the lunar surface are budgetary and political hurdles - not scientific or technical challenges. Private companies like  Blue Origin  or  SpaceX  may be the first entities to return people to the moon. Landing 14 people on the moon remains one of NASA's greatest achievements, if not the greatest. Astronauts collected rocks, took photos, performed experiments, planted some flags, and then came home. But those week-long stays during the Apollo program didn't establish a lasting human presence on the moon. More than 45 years after the most recent crewed moon landing - Apollo 17 in December 1972 - there are plenty of reasons to return people to Earth's giant, dusty ...

NASA has shared a landscape view of a surface on Planet Mars that features what appears like crawling spiders. Image of the Day The image, which the U.S space agency posted as part of its Image of the Day series on Friday, was taken at the South Pole of the Red Planet on May 13. The image shows a carbon ice cap that enveloped the region during the winter as the sun returns in the spring. It shows what appears like silhouettes of spiders emerging from the Martian surface. Araneiform Terrain These arachnid-like features, however, are not actual spiders. These features are what scientists call "araneiform terrain." The mounds form when carbon dioxide ice beneath the surface heats up and is released. NASA said that the active seasonal process involved does not occur on Earth, but like dry ice on our planet, the carbon dioxide ice on Mars sublimates when it warms, causing it to change from solid to gas and become trapped below the surface. How Ara...