Why are these people shooting a powerful laser into the center of our Galaxy? Fortunately, this is not meant to be the first step in a Galactic war. Rather, astronomers at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) site in Chile are trying to measure the distortions... Continue Reading →
On January 3, the Chinese Chang'e-4 spacecraft made the first successful landing on the Moon's farside. Taken by a camera on board the lander, this image is from the landing site inside Von Karman crater. It shows the desksized, six-wheeled Yutu 2 (Jade Rabbit 2)... Continue Reading →
For the first time in history, a space mission has touched down on the far side of the moon. China’s Chang’e-4 probe landed in the oldest and deepest basin on the moon’s surface. One challenge of sending a probe to... Continue Reading →
The space shuttle Endeavour, mission STS-88, launched Dec. 6, 1998, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying the U.S.-built Unity connecting module and two pressurized mating adapters. Unity was the first piece of the International Space Station provided by the United... Continue Reading →
On January 1 New Horizons encountered the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Some 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, Ultima Thule is the most distant world ever explored by a spacecraft from Earth. This historic image, the highest resolution image released so far, was... Continue Reading →
Remember Rosetta? That comet-chasing European Space Agency (ESA) probe that deployed (and accidentally bounced) its lander Philae on the surface of Comet 67P? This GIF is made up of images Rosetta beamed back to Earth, which have been freely available... Continue Reading →
It is the largest and most sophisticated object ever built off the Earth. It has taken numerous spaceflights and over a decade to construct. The International Space Station (ISS) is currently the premiere habitat for humans in Earth orbit, and an amalgamation of sophisticated orbiting... Continue Reading →
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble .... maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. A frighteningly shaped reflection nebula, this cosmic crone is about 800 light-years away though. Its malevolent visage seems to glare toward nearby... Continue Reading →
The Mars Express orbiter has taken some stunning photos of Korolev Crater, an ice-filled crater near the Martian north pole. It looks from a distance like a snowy winter landscape on Earth. Mars is famous for its polar ice caps... Continue Reading →
Scents of Science 