Tag Archives: NASA

On This Day in Astronomy History…

On this day, April 9th, 59 years ago in 1959, NASA introduced the world to their first ever astronauts, the Mercury 7.  A press conference was held in D.C. to announce the line up, and reveal America’s next move in the space race against the Soviet Union. This came a year after NASA had introduced […] Continue reading

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NASA Applied Sciences: Not just rocket science

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is known throughout the world as an organization whose focus in on what lies beyond Earth. A lesser-known NASA department, Applied Sciences, is an example of the opposite. Applied Sciences diverts resources and minds towards using satellite and aeronautical engineering for the Earth Sciences. Applied science measures air … Continue reading NASA Applied Sciences: Not just rocket science Continue reading

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Almost InSight

InSight is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, and is NASA’s next big spacecraft. A little contrived, but its memorable. InSight is a Mars lander designed to study the inside of Mars: the crust, mantle, and core. It does so by measuring the planet’s seismology, heat flow, and precision tracking. … Continue reading Almost InSight Continue reading

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NASA Cuts and Privatizing Space – Trump’s Plan

The Trump administration’s NASA budget request for 2019 was revealed today, and many of the requests come at the dismay of many prominent people in the space and astronomy field. Most of the requests call for NASA to pursue commercial partnerships. For example, the administration requests NASA stop directly funding the International Space Station (ISS) … Continue reading NASA Cuts and Privatizing Space – Trump’s Plan Continue reading

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NASA Cuts and Privatizing Space – Trump’s Plan

The Trump administration’s NASA budget request for 2019 was revealed today, and many of the requests come at the dismay of many prominent people in the space and astronomy field. Most of the requests call for NASA to pursue commercial partnerships. For example, the administration requests NASA stop directly funding the International Space Station (ISS) … Continue reading NASA Cuts and Privatizing Space – Trump’s Plan Continue reading

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On This Day in Astronomy History…

  Thirty-four years ago today, on February 7th 1984, NASA Astronaut Bruce McCandless II became the first person to fly untethered from their spacecraft. McCandless, who just recently passed December 21st at the age of 80, was able to travel 320 feet from the space shuttle Challenger without any connection to the shuttle. He accomplished […] Continue reading

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Blog 01: Megamasers

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has recently captured an awe-inspiring picture of a distant “exotic” galaxy, UGC-6093. It is an active, barred galaxy–this means the center, featuring a bar across the illuminated center, hosts an active galactic nucleus. In this center region, matter is sucked into a supermassive black hole, thereby emitting the intense radiation that … Continue reading Blog 01: Megamasers Continue reading

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No Mars After All?

Humans have long dreamt to venture to Mars, and NASA fueled those dreams, especially in recent years. With the Space … More Continue reading

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Ceres Harbors Building Blocks of Life

Ceres, the largest asteroid in the Solar System, and now considered a dwarf planet, may have once been habitable. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft collected samples from the surface and were found to contain organic compounds and amino acids, which are often referred to as the building blocks of life. Dawn has also discovered evidence of a subsurface… Continue reading Ceres Harbors Building Blocks of Life Continue reading

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Europa Clipper

In the not too distant future, NASA will be sending a probe to one of Jupiter’s moons. I’m sure you can guess from the title of this blog post that the probe will be sent to Europa. Recently, NASA announced the name of this mission: Europa Clipper. It is named after clippers, swift ships that […] Continue reading

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