In a June 4 telecon with the press, NASA shared that due to recent issues, they have made the decision to operate HST in single gyro mode. This isn’t expected to have any impact on the quality of individual science images, however Hubble will need significantly more time to get on target as it relies on imaging to refine its pointing significantly more than in the past. It’s estimated that as much as 25% less science will be possible… which is still a lot more science than could be accomplished without Hubble. Sun willing, we should still have many more years of data from Hubble. We will...
Robotic arms may rescue clumsy astronauts
I have a delightfully weird tech story related to future lunar exploration. Research has shown that astronauts working on the moon are most likely to fall over when using tools, and once they fall over, getting up while wearing a space suit that restricts their motion...
Talking to Whales
Credit: Jodi Frediani; NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Research Permit 19703 The kinds of life many of us hope to find within our solar system likely won’t be all that intellectual. Those possible microbes on Mars might be able to respond to food or pain, but that’s...
New Simulation Provides More Accurate Model of Everything
Credit: Josh Borrow, the FLAMINGO team and the Virgo Consortium To succeed in astronomy, you really need to either be really really good with technology, or really really good at math. I personally am a technology person, and I’ll happily operate telescopes and write...