One of my favorite
blogs happens to be local to me. Eric Berger, the Houston Chronicle's "SciGuy" usually reports on the
weather. But he also posts entertaining and serious stuff as well.
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posted by PapaLobo
on Nov 22, 2011 -
3 comments
NASA May Have Discovered Flowing Water on Mars Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars' southern hemisphere.
posted by modernnomad
on Aug 4, 2011 -
65 comments
Introducing the
Nautilus-X MMSEV, a manned deep space craft proposed by a team at NASA's Johnson Space Centre.
posted by Artw
on Feb 14, 2011 -
34 comments
"I can sense stars, and their whispers amid the roaring of our own Sun." So goes one poetic status of the
Voyager 2 twitterfeed, which appeals to my sense of wonder like nothing else on the internet. Interstellar space probes and microblogging go hand in hand in the 21st Century.
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 21, 2010 -
23 comments
Built as part of the fifth
/dev/fort developer retreat,
Spacelog.org allows you to explore early space missions via the original NASA transcripts. Currently live are
Mercury 6 which made John Glenn the first American in orbit, and the 'successful failure'
Apollo 13 (The transcribed
key moment and the
original). Alongside the transcripts are supporting materials from the NASA archives including
photography and descriptions of the
mission phases. The developers are
looking for help to digitise the Gemini 7, Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 missions.
posted by garrett
on Dec 1, 2010 -
11 comments
On July 17th, NASA's
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite
completed its first survey of the entire sky viewable from Earth. After just seven months in orbit, WISE -- a precursor to the planned
James Webb Space Telescope -- has returned more than a million images that provide a close look at
celestial objects ranging from
distant galaxies to
asteroids. The first release of WISE data, covering about 80 percent of the sky,
will be delivered to the astronomical community in May of next year, but in the meantime we can see some of the images and animations that NASA has released to date: Galleries
(containing just a small selection of images):
1,
2,
3,
4. Videos and Animations:
1,
2 [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jul 24, 2010 -
11 comments
Tonight NASA is scheduled to launch the
Kepler Mission (named after planetary legislator
Johannes Kepler) with the goal of finding Earth size planets in orbit around stars in the
Cygnus-Lyra region of the sky. Over the next 3 and a half years it will maintain a nearly unblinking gaze on the approximately 100 thousand stars in the region. NASA expects it to find about
50 Earth size planets, as well as hundreds that are larger. You can watch the launch live on
NASA TV.
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posted by borkencode
on Mar 6, 2009 -
42 comments
Science & technology funding has an enormous long term impact on the economy, a fact that has not escaped China. Yet, Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have
proposed cutting all National Science Foundation and Department of Energy Office of Science funding from the
Senate American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, along with almost all other proposed funding of the sciences and technological development, as a part of a $77.9B reduction effort. Why? Well, you'll notice that Nebraska & Maine don't contribute much to science & technology in the United States, nor win many grants, and hence no bacon for Nelson and Collins.
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posted by jeffburdges
on Feb 6, 2009 -
86 comments
"
We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or
TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix
last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
posted by finite
on Aug 1, 2008 -
52 comments
Assemble a rocket from main engine to payload fairing.
Rocket Science 101 shows the basic parts of the launch vehicle, how they are configured, and how they work together to launch a NASA spacecraft. More Friday Flash Fun.
posted by netbros
on May 30, 2008 -
8 comments
Bay Area Yuri's Night 2007 Bay Area Yuri's Night 2007 Yuri's Night Bay Area will be held at Moffett Field in the
NASA Ames Research Center's massive
SOFIA hangar, home to the world's largest aerial observatory. Our host for the evening is pioneering space traveler
Anousheh Anasari, the first privately funded female to reach orbit. She is joined by
Dr. Chris McKay, world renowned expert in astrobiology and terraformation with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames Research Center, as they welcome you to a dazzling array of interactive art installations and science demos, interwoven with musical and acrobatic performances by some of the world's finest entertainers.
Complete write up. Partially via MeFi's own lannanh.
posted by loquacious
on Apr 6, 2007 -
23 comments
Hubble's ACS Has Died. Hubble's
Advanced Camera for Surveys has apparently gone into safe mode, with little hope of return. The ACS was installed in 2002, and added amazing upgrades to Hubble's imaging capabilities. Though its lifespan was only projected at five years, scientists had hoped it would hold out longer. Though a final shuttle servicing mission is scheduled for 2008,
the mission objectives plate is already too full to consider its repair. Alas, more of those beautiful pictures (as well as extended research capabilities) will have to wait until the
James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2013.
posted by Brak
on Jan 29, 2007 -
23 comments
Ever have trouble visualizing how the solar system is put together, how the orbits work, how everything is positioned relative to everything else? This site helps you see how we think it all fits together.
posted by Fozzie
on Jun 22, 2005 -
16 comments
The Pioneer Anomaly. Something's up in deep space: the
Pioneer spacecraft, now out of contact, have shown an unexplained Doppler drift, indicating sunward acceleration, effectively decelerating the probes cumulatively. The effect may be be nongravitational, and could be explained by any number of factors: an undiscovered twist in Newtonian physics, localized cosmological contraction issues, or just venting gas. Other deep space probes may have experienced the anomaly as well, and
a new mission could explore the puzzle; but for now, all we have is past Pioneer data, and that's stored on old
9 track tape which can only be read by antique readers. What's to be done? (Also see
Pioneer Odyssey for a nostalgic romp through those early days of deep space exploration. And NASA, bring back the
original Pioneer home page plz, kthx.)
posted by brownpau
on Jun 13, 2005 -
21 comments
