Category: Space

Computer searches telescope data for evidence of distant planets As part of an effort to identify distant planets hospitable to life, NASA has established a crowdsourcing project in which volunteers search telescopic images for evidence of debris disks around stars, which are good indicators of exoplanets. Using the results of that project, researchers at MIT…

Very interesting read about the microprocessors used in various spacecraft . Throughout the years, microprocessors have played a large role in spacecrafts. space-qualified microprocessors are designed to be exceptionally reliable and highly durable. Due to their unique nature, the same set of chips that have been tested and proven to work are used in many spacecrafts.  microprocessors used in spacecrafts  

Marcus Tullius Cicero, born on 3 January 106 BC, bestrides Latin literature like a colossus. The combination of an immense output of writings and a strong afterlife in the schools of late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, means that more manuscripts of Cicero’s work survive than of any other classical Latin author. Only…

New Horizons There’s a very good reason – it wasn’t discovered until 1992. At that stage, Voyager 1 was almost all the way across the the Kuiper Belt and Voyager 2 halfway through it! Source: pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_02_28_2018 From the article –  “But, perhaps most important is the question: could Voyager have flown by a small KBO…

Fabulous to see! Launceston planetarium marks 50 years Time stands still for Launceston’s planetarium with little changing in the past 50 years. Source: www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-23/launceston-planetarium-marks-50-years/9408338

Always loved the idea of going to Mars on an atomic rocket.   NASA Is Bringing Back Cold War-Era Atomic Rockets to Get to Mars Nuclear-powered spacecraft would cut travel time to the red planet. Source: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-15/nasa-is-bringing-back-cold-war-era-atomic-rockets-to-get-to-mars

  Pluto’s Methane Snowcaps on the Edge of Darkness The southernmost part of Pluto that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft could “see” during closest approach in July 2015 contains a range of fascinating geological features, and offers clues into what might lurk in the regions shrouded in darkness during the flyby. Source: www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-methane-snowcaps-on-the-edge-of-darkness

Wow – Mercury is geologically active. The Incredible Shrinking Mercury is Active After All It’s small, it’s hot, and it’s shrinking. Surprising new NASA-funded research suggests that Mercury is contracting even today, joining Earth as a tectonically active planet. Source: www.nasa.gov/feature/the-incredible-shrinking-mercury-is-active-after-all/  

Looks like they found the Philae lander! Philae found! Less than a month before the end of the mission, Rosetta’s high-resolution camera has revealed the Philae lander wedged into a dark crack on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Source: www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Philae_found

  NASA just released 1,035 new images of Mars — here are some of the best Mars definitely deserves its Red Planet nickname. But scientists use such a range of photographing techniques that the planet can end up a rainbow of colors. Source: www.businessinsider.com/new-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter-hirise-photos-2016-8/