Tag Archives: technology

Voyager 2

Today Voyager 1 was on Earth just 38 years and now it’s more than 130 AU away. It is venturing into deep space and exploring areas of the Universe that we have never seen before. On September 12, 2013, the spacecraft left the Solar System. The spacecraft is unique and fascinating in many ways. We […] Continue reading

Posted in Instruments, Space Travel | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Voyager 2

The Golden Record

Regardless of whether or not life beyond Earth actually does exist, it is fascinating to consider how extraterrestrial life might view Earth and Earthlings. Most of the time, people tend to focus on how humans on Earth would respond to aliens, should they come into contact, However, during lecture the other day, I was intrigued […] Continue reading

Posted in Aliens, Universe | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The Golden Record

Liquid Confidence

“I believe we are going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade and definitive evidence in the next 10 to 20 years,” Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for NASA. “It’s definitely not an if, it’s a when,” said Jeffery Newmark, one of Stofan’s colleagues. NASA made these bold claims at a […] Continue reading

Posted in Aliens, Dwarf Planets, Historical | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Liquid Confidence

New Horizons

Exploring Pluto Pluto, the small icy body at the edge of our planetary system, has been under scrutiny in scientific …

Continue reading

Continue reading

Posted in Dwarf Planets, Instruments | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New Horizons

Explore Vesta with Vesta Trek

Today, NASA released Vesta Trek, a free web-based application that provides a detailed visualization of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System. This was made possible by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which studied Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. This application includes interactive maps, the ability to print Vesta in a 3-D printer, […] Continue reading

Posted in Instruments | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Explore Vesta with Vesta Trek

A trip to Venus?

video from phys.org It seems like all of the talk in the field of space travel these days has been too focused on a trip to one single location…Mars.  But noticing while studying these past few chapters that Venus is actually a bit closer to Earth than Mars, that brought up a question in my […] Continue reading

Posted in Space Travel | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on A trip to Venus?

Space Movies – Fact or Fiction?

Our in class discussion about some space movies had me venturing down a rabbit hole about Hollywood’s misconceptions about space. The most entertaining aspect for me is how movies portray character deaths in space. Movies always find creative and dramatic ways for their characters to die in space – none of which are accurate. In […] Continue reading

Posted in Space Travel | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Space Movies – Fact or Fiction?

A Star In a Box

A solution to our energy problems? A star in a box. Taking the process of fusion that powers stars and recreate it on Earth can be the road to large quantities of energy with very little pollution and radioactive waste. One of the most efficient ways to generate energy nowadays is a fission reactor, but […] Continue reading

Posted in Physics | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on A Star In a Box

Dawn’s New Home

If we want to understand the universe, we need to understand our Solar System first. And NASA is well underway to exploring every bit of our solar neighborhood. Just a couple of days ago the spacecraft Dawn send a message to NASA that it was “healthy and thrusting with its ion engine” in an orbit […] Continue reading

Posted in Dwarf Planets | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Dawn’s New Home

How special is the Milky Way?

The Milky Way is the first galaxy that we call home since the beginning of the human race and it is very likely also the last. We know earth has many rare qualities that made life possible, looking on a larger scale, is our galaxy also a unique snowflake like our planet? Using data collected from the Sloan … Continue reading How special is the Milky Way? Continue reading

Posted in Galaxies | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on How special is the Milky Way?