NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope recently detected tremendous amounts of water vapor inside the accretion disk of a newborn star approximately 1,000 light-years from Earth. The new observations show for the first time how water, a basic ingredient for life as ...
First Commercial Spaceport Unveiled
Earlier this month, a team of U.S. and British architects and designers unveiled the design of the first commercial spaceport in the world, scheduled to be built in New Mexico. The gigantic 100,000 square-foot hangar and terminal facility, scheduled to ...
Eurobot – Astronaut’s Space Friend
Engineers from the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) have recently completed the first set of trials of a sophisticated machine capable of operating in space, known as the Eurobot. The Eurobot, which has been under development since 2003, is intended to ...
Google Goes to Space
The recently released version of the popular software Google Earth includes a new unique feature – a look not down towards our own planet but upwards into the heavens. Clicking the name of your favorite galaxy will take you millions ...
Star Tail
NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) telescope was able to take a unique picture of a star with a comet’s tail. The star, named Mira (from the Latin term for “wonderful”), is moving through space at an unusual speed of 468,319 ...
Endeavour STS-118 Mission Liftoff
On August 8th, 2007, Space Shuttle Endeavour successfully lifted off the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The launch, the first for the Endeavour after almost five years following the Columbia Shuttle disaster, marks the beginning of the Space ...
First Water on an Extrasolar Planet
Scientists discovered what seems to be the first conclusive evidence for water on an extrasolar planet. The discovery was made by French scientists using data from NASA’s Spitzer space telescope and was recently published in the scientific magazine Nature. In ...
Spacesuits of the Future
A design of a new type of astronaut suit is currently underway at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dava Newman, Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics and Engineering Systems at MIT is leading the “BioSuit” Project. The project is based on ...
The Rise of the Phoenix
Similar to its namesake, the Phoenix Mission raises from the ashes a spacecraft and instruments from two previous unsuccessful attempts to explore Mars: the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander. The Mars Polar Lander failed to return ...
Planets with 4 Suns Discovered?
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope recently discovered what might be the first planetary system with four Suns. The quadruple-star system known as HD 988000 is approximately 10-million years old, and is located 150 light-years away from Earth (fairly close in astronomical ...