Space – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Breathing in Moon Dust Could be Even More Toxic Than We Thought

Posted by Michael Lance in health, space

Dec 15
2018

Space agencies are working hard to get humans back to the surface of the Moon. But it’s not exactly the most inviting place.

Astronauts during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 may not have had any health incidents while they were gleefully bouncing around on the lunar surface, as a NASA mission report from the time points out. But they knew that lunar dust wasn’t their friend — it could irritate their lungs, cause their Moon buggies to overheat — it even started degrading their spacesuits.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted a… — NASA — National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Posted by Michael Lance in space

Dec 15
2018

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted a rare, medium-size “hot Neptune” planet in a solar system far beyond our own. Why are there so few exoplanets of this size? Some clues: the planet orbits very close to a young star, and its atmosphere is evaporating rapidly from the blistering radiation. https://go.nasa.gov/2rBCwW4

Kings troll Steph with moon landing footage

Posted by Michael Lance in space

Dec 14
2018

The Kings played moon landing footage during Warriors’ intros and Steph loved it 😂 (via NBCS Bay Area)

What If We Started Mining Asteroids?

Posted by Michael Lance in space

Dec 14
2018

Posted by What. If.

Scientists Detect Hot Neptune Losing Atmosphere at an Extraordinary Rate

Posted by Genevieve Klien in space

Dec 14
2018

Scientists have detected a so-called Hot Neptune losing atmosphere extremely quickly, possibly explaining why we find so few of them in the first place.

Virgin Galactic’s Historic Space Trip Heralds a Coming Age of New US Human Spaceflight Leaps

Posted by Alberto Lao in space, transportation

Dec 14
2018

Virgin Galactic just brought human spaceflight back to American soil after a seven-year hiatus, and other private companies are poised to make some giant leaps of their own.

Virgin’s VSS Unity suborbital spaceliner soared to a maximum altitude of 51.4 miles (82.7 kilometers) during a rocket-powered test flight over California’s Mojave Desert yesterday (Dec. 13).

The milestone marked the first U.S.-based crewed trip to the final frontier since NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet in July 2011. And it was the first spaceflight ever by a private vehicle designed to carry commercial passengers. (By one measure, anyway: Though many people place the boundary of outer space 62 miles, or 100 km, up at the “Karman Line,” the U.S. Air Force awards astronaut wings to personnel who reach an altitude of 50 miles, or 80 km.) [In Photos: Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity Soars to Space].

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Spots InSight Hardware on Mars

Posted by Alberto Lao in space

Dec 14
2018

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may not have managed to spot InSight under its parachute, but it has finally spotted the lander, its parachute, and its heat shield resting on the Martian surface. The images confirm the location of InSight’s landing site, a little to the north and west of the center of the landing ellipse.

First, the fantastic hardware images:

Surprises are in store for the New Horizons’ fly by

Posted by Genevieve Klien in space

Dec 14
2018

There will be no New Year’s Eve revelry for those working on NASA’s New Horizon’s space probe. They will need to be stone cold sober with their wits about them when, on New Year’s Day 2019, it whizzes past one of the fossil building blocks of the planets and one of the most primitive bodies in the Solar System.

The year’s brightest comet streaks by Earth this weekend

Posted by Michael Lance in space

Dec 14
2018

Is this the “star of Bethlehem?”

NASA’s Insight Lander on Mars Spotted from Space!

Posted by Alberto Lao in robotics/AI, space

Dec 14
2018

NASA’s newly arrived Mars lander has been spotted by one its orbiting cousins.

The space agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter used its supersharp High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) to photograph the InSight lander, as well as the hardware that helped the stationary robot ace its Nov. 26 touchdown on the equatorial plain known as Elysium Planitia.

“It looks like the heat shield (upper right) has its dark outside facing down, since it is so bright (saturated, probably a specular reflection),” HiRISE principal investigator Alfred McEwen, of the University of Arizona, wrote in an image description today (Dec. 13). [Mars InSight in Photos: NASA’s Mission to Probe Core of the Red Planet].