Light can be absorbed, reflected, and re-emitted by gas and dust, giving us a second look. They’re called light echoes, and allow astronomers another way to understand the Universe around us.
Scientists have samples of the Sun’s solar wind, particles from a comet’s tail, a few grams from an asteroid, with more coming shortly. But there’s still no sample return from Mars. NASA & ESA have been making plans to bring sample home from Mars.
launching a rocket powered by radioactive material has its own risks as well. Should we attempt it?
The Van Allen Belts surround the Earth with deadly radiation. What can we do to get past them and escape into deep space?
Could there have been an advanced civilization that walked the Earth millions or even billions of years ago, and then died out long ago, their technology and structures lost to the eons? More at #365DaysOfAstro
The Solar System is a really big place, and it takes forever to travel from world to world with traditional chemical rockets. But one technique, developed back in the 1960s might provide a way to dramatically shorten our travel times: nuclear rockets.
We know there’s life on Earth, and our atmosphere tells the tale, so can we do the same thing with extrasolar planets?
astronomers and engineers have an amazing technology that allows a telescope to peer into space as if the atmosphere isn’t even there.
NASA’s Voyager spacecraft are on a journey through the outer reaches of the Solar System and out into the Milky Way Galaxy. In the thousands, millions and even billions of years of travel, where will they go? What will they see?
Over the past decades, many missions have been canceled. What alternative history could we have had if these projects had gone through?