SPACEWhile their families and colleagues must undoubtedly think about them 24 hours a day, it seems that most residents of Earth never find themselves pondering what life must be like for the elite six astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) just outside our atmosphere. Orbiting the Earth in a giant space-bound laboratory, life can get pretty interesting. And something even as innocuous as the ball drop of a new year can turn into something entirely note-worthy.
Nearly 50 years ago, the world was in a similar climate as it is today. International affairs were rocky at best, and former enemies on the global stage took to space as they would a battlefield. Nations like the U.S. and Soviet Russia engaged in a war of attrition, one that luckily never led to actual battle; but rather led to a space race the United States won first.
It’s been a mission ten years in the making, and after a final green light from mission control tonight, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta Mission will deploy its handy little lander named “Philae” onto the surface of the far off Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko it met up with earlier this summer.
The launch of the Antares rocket carrying supplies and scientific equipment to the International Space Station was rescheduled from Monday evening to Tuesday evening due to a wayward sailboat entered the restricted zone underneath the rocket's flight path. The launch is now scheduled to 6:22 p.m. ET on Tuesday night.
Elon Musk's SpaceX keeps on completing milestones on its way to building that city on Mars ASAP, but first it must prove it can handle reliably traveling to somewhere much closer: the International Space Station, currently orbiting Earth.
Orbital Sciences will launch a rocket containing supplies for the International Space Station from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia tonight, and if you live on the East Coast, you just might be able to view it with the naked eye.
Google Senior Vice President Alan Eustice just completed a feat for the record books. Eustice broke Felix Baumgartner's world skydiving altitude record this week when he rode a balloon to a height of over 135,000 feet and then safely made the harrowing journey back to Earth.
NASA has reported that its most recent images of Saturn's moon Titan show a strange phenomenon occurring: gases within the atmosphere near both its north and south poles are glowing. The images were taken by a research team attempting to learn more about what Titan's atmosphere is made of.
It's time for another one of Earth's annual meteor shower events, the Orionid meteor shower. Those who are willing to wake up early enough to catch a glimpse of the pre-dawn sky over the next week should be able to spot a few meteors are they streak across the morning sky.
The U.S. Air Force's mysterious X-37B space plane landed this week after a record of nearly two years in orbit, yet government officials still haven't commented as to the nature of its mission. The 'orbital test vehicle' is the third such OTV mission, and orbited the Earth for 674 days.