Space
Space includes outer space, the sun and planets in the solar system
Forensic Astronomer Solves Fine Arts Puzzles
Astrophysicist Don Olson breaks down the barriers between science and art by analyzing literature and paintings from the past
April 2009 |
By Jennifer Drapkin and Sarah Zielinski
A Spaceship Visits the National Mall
Visitors to the National Mall will get a treat today. Parked just outside the National Air and Space Museum is a mockup of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, the spacecraft that will replace the Space Shuttle, which will go out of service next year.NASA and the U.S. Navy built this replica of the ...
March 30, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week—Saturn
No, the picture of the week is not going to be of baby clouded leopards. The National Zoo's new bundles of joy are unbearably cute, it's true. But for a real ooh-aah experience, check out the Jet Propulsion Lab's gallery of images from the Cassini-Huygens Mission.Cassini has been zipping around Sat...
March 27, 2009 |
By Laura Helmuth
Vote for Hubble’s Next Target
In honor of the International Year of Astronomy—an effort led by UNESCO and the International Astronomical Union “to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery”—the managers o...
January 29, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Milky Way is Bigger, Faster, and Heading for Trouble
Have you heard that the Milky Way is bigger than we thought? Fifty percent bigger, according to new measurements from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. (Insert candy bar joke here.) Our Around the Mall blog chatted with one of the astronomers responsible for the discovery. The bad ne...
January 09, 2009 |
By Laura Helmuth
Picture of the Week—Christmas Tree Cluster
If it is clear out tonight, grab your binoculars or a telescope and look up at the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn. There you will find NGC 2264, a region of space that includes the Christmas Tree Cluster, named for its triangular shape (upside-down here) and sparkly blue stars. Astronomer ...
December 25, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week—Jupiter and Ganymede
How far we have come from 1609, when Galileo Galilei first aimed his telescope towards the little twinkly dots in the sky and saw stars and planets. Turning his sights on Jupiter in 1610, he noticed that some stars near the planet disappeared over the following nights—he had discovered some of the ...
December 19, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Lessons in Space Exploration From Lewis and Clark
The similarities between the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803 to 1806 and a manned mission to Mars are not immediately obvious. Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their fellow adventurers never had to deal with the problems of cosmic radiation, for instance, or the osteoporosis and muscle atroph...
December 18, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Sixteen Years of Black Hole Watching Pays Off
How do you prove that a black hole exists? It is so dense, not even light can escape its grasp. It cannot be seen.To find a black hole, you track the movement of the stars orbiting and moving near the object, and you do this for many years. You’ll need a big, powerful telescope (such as the W.M. Ke...
December 10, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
What Did You Do in College? These Students Discovered a Planet
That’s right. These three undergraduates from Leiden University in the Netherlands discovered a planet, and not just any old planet. They’re the first to find one orbiting a fast-rotating star.Their class was developing algorithms that could automate a search through a database of star observations...
December 08, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Stardust Memories
Cosmic dust may reveal some of the uncovered secrets of our universe
December 2008 |
By Anika Gupta
The Body of Copernicus Is Identified
You remember Nicolaus Copernicus, right? He’s the 16th-century Polish astronomer who was the first to figure out that earth was not the center of the universe, that the earth and all the other planets orbited the sun. But he wasn’t always so well known. Copernicus worked as a church administrator s...
November 24, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week – A Newly Restored Photo of the Earth and Moon
In honor of our newly launched sister blog, The Once and Future Moon, from Air & Space, this week’s Picture of the Week is the Earth as seen from the Moon, circa 1966.Thinking ahead, NASA sent five missions up to photograph the moon in the 1960s, before sending the first people. The data have b...
November 21, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Lunar Living
The quest to return to the moon ignites new hope and vision at the 50-year-old space agency
July 2008 |
By Kenneth R. Fletcher
Debating Manned Moon Missions
Experts provide opposing viewpoints on manned missions to space
July 2008 |
By Kenneth R. Fletcher
Homing In On Black Holes
To gain insight into the most mysterious objects in the universe, astronomers shine a light at the chaotic core of our Milky Way
April 2008 |
By Robert Irion
Explorer I Satellite
In 1958, Explorer 1 launched America's response to the USSR's Sputnik
January 2008 |
By Owen Edwards
Life Beyond Earth
An ocean on Mars. An Earth-like planet light years away. The evidence is mounting, but are astronomers ready to say we're not alone?
July 01, 2007 |
By Eric Jaffe
Clues from a Comet
The first mission to collect space matter from beyond the moon offers insights into the solar system's creation
December 01, 2006 |
By Eric Jaffe
