SPACE

Must See: 5 Months in Space Compressed into 6 Minutes

The European Space Agency compiled the five months' worth of pictures down to a 6 minute video that, while depicting space in the most accurate way, feels like science fiction to watch. The video shows natural phenomena such as auroras, lightening and other intense weather patterns like us earth-dwellers have never seen before. It even shows the most breathtaking views of lit-up cities, deep blue oceans, stars and clouds.

Orion’s Return: What Re-entry Means for the Industry of Spaceflight

On December 5, 2014 after a one-day weather delay, NASA launched Orion from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. While this test flight was unmanned, Orion is built to hold a crew of 2- 6 individuals. It’s no secret that NASA plans to send humans to an asteroid and to Mars using Orion.

NuSTAR Telescope Helps NASA Find Nanoflares on the Sun

With a new day in science comes a new study of the sun. No, we’re not talking about a new telescope or a new division under the international space agencies, but rather a reallocation of a science used in other parts of space. Turning their sights from far off black holes, with a closer subject in mind, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is repositioning their NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) towards our very own local star to produce the most sensitive measurements of high-energy solar x-rays to date.

Discovery Sparks Interest—NASA’s Mission to Mars Gets Its Own New Show

Often in the media, it’s what’s new and fresh that brings in the ratings. But what about looking for something potentially millions of years old? What if it wasn’t on this planet even? Peak your interest yet? Well, if so, you may just be in luck, because after decades of researching and scoping out the fourth planet from our sun, Mars, NASA has announced today that it has collaborated with the Discovery Channel to show a never-before-seen view of the Red Planet. And it airs tonight, Dec. 18!

Curiosity Rover Gets Its Own Special—Discovery Channel Tonight

Earlier this week, NASA announced that its Mars Curiosity Rover may have found some essential building blocks of life, and now they’re saying that viewers on Earth will have a chance to watch the discovery process for themselves. Premiering tonight, Dec. 18, the Discovery Channel will chronicle the Curiosity Rover’s long trek across the Red Planet fourth from our sun, giving viewers here on Earth a never-before-seen perspective from the surface of Mars.

Organics on Mars—Could Life Be Sustained on Red Planet?

While there are many requisite features for a planet to be host to forms of life, even as simple as archaea species, the most important known feature is the existence of organic molecules from which they can be created. And though there are still many questions left unanswered about our red neighbor on the galactic block, Mars, researchers from NASA say that the Curiosity Rover Mission has successfully identified methane and other organics which may give their teams a better insight into the possible watery past of our solar system’s famed “Red Planet”.

Eons After the Big Bang, and 80 Years After It Was Proposed, Dark Matter Takes Form in Andromeda

For decades now, researchers have long believed that the ever-elusive dark matter has comprised roughly 80 percent of the entire universe’s mass. But in spite of advancing technology, taking astronomers past the moon to far off comets/planets and back, researchers have not yet been able to identify the existence of dark matter in our galaxy or any other, and have not yet been able to isolate the hypothetical invisible particles in Earth labs either. But in what appears to be a strange X-ray emission from nearby galactic clusters, two independent European research teams believe that they may have found the first true dark matter known to man—and it’s not too far away either.

Bouncing Philae Takes Award for Breakthrough of the Year

It’s no big surprise that this year when reporters and editors of the journal Physics World came together to award the top-10 revolutionary breakthroughs of the year, that the team would have many breakthroughs to consider for the year of 2014. And though perhaps not necessarily the most technically successful mission this year, on account of the vast distances between Earth and itself as well as it bouncy landing, the team narrowed down the prospective list down to one to name the November 12, 2014 touchdown of the Philae Lander to be the most historic moment of the year.

Strange Andromeda Transmission May be First Sign of Dark Matter

While the ever elusive “dark matter” was first proposed by Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in the early 1930s, a team of European scientists this week believe that they may have detected the first ever evidence of dark matter in mysterious photo emissions of the X-ray spectra, emitting from the Andromeda galaxy, the Draco dwarf galaxy, and other galactic clusters far outside our own solar system.

Could Water Have Changed the Face of Mars, or Is the Habitability Question too Much to Bare?

While some parts of the nation are fighting Winter storms of snow and sleet, eyes this week are o water of the liquid variety. And more specifically, researchers and reporters are looking towards the molecule’s importance in developing life, as well as its origins story too. News this week of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta Mission, revealed a recently published study reporting that the sustenance of our Earth and of all life, water, may in fact have not originated on comets from the Kuiper Belt as once believed. And what’s more, now that researchers have debunked false origin stories of the miracle molecule, they’re now beginning to question whether water alone can make a planet habitable for life, or if there are other mitigating conditions as well.
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