Michigan Students Connect with Orbiting Astronauts for Out of this World Conversation

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, state Sen. John Pappageorge and state Rep. Marty Knollenberg also will be in attendance. U.S. Sen. Carl Levin will send the students a video welcome.To develop an understanding of microgravity and orbital motion in preparation for the call with the astronauts, students wrote proposals for NASA programs to design, build and test their own microgravity experiments. Four teams from Troy Athens High School were selected for NASA's Dropping In a Microgravity...

read more

NASA to find out if Phoenix Lander still working

NASA is to find out whether its Mars exploration spacecraft, the Phoenix Lander, is still functioning or not, according to news reports on Wednesday.The Phoenix Lander was landed on Mars on May 2008 in glancing for possible lives. After almost half a year of searching, the Spacecraft has presumably concluded its own life.To continue its researching, NASA has now begun to make new efforts to know whether the Phoenix Lander is still in function."We have no hope that Phoenix has survived...but we certainly...

read more

For sale: two space shuttles, slightly used

US space agency NASA is organizing its own January sale, cutting the price tag of two space shuttles from $42 to $28.8 million (€29.21 to €20.04 million).Space Shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour will be available for release to "education institutions, science museums and other appropriate organizations" from July 2011. They are being retired this year as the US Space Shuttle program is halted in support of a new space exploration program named Constellation.NASA formerly announced plans to sell the...

read more

NASA's Rosetta 'Alice' Spectrometer Reveals Earth's UV Fingerprint

On November 13, the European Space Agency's comet orbiter Spacecraft, Rosetta, swooped by Earth for its third and final gravity support on the way to humankind's first rendezvous to orbit and study a comet in more detail than has ever been attempted.One of the instruments aboard Rosetta is the NASA-funded ultraviolet spectrometer, Alice, which is designed to investigate the composition of the comet's atmosphere and surface - the first ultraviolet spectrometer ever to study a comet up close. During...

read more

NASA: February launch still on despite bad hoses

NASA is still shooting for a shuttle launch next month, regardless of bad hoses for a new room at the space station. Endeavour is believed to blast off Feb. 7 with the Tranquility module. It's a chamber that will provide extra living quarters at the International Space Station. Recent tests created a problem with the ammonia coolant lines for the module. The metal braiding on two of the four hoses started separating. NASA manager Pete Hasbrook said Monday that the California contractor is complaining...

read more

NASA IMAX 3D movie features astonishing Hubble repair footage

Coming to an IMAX theatre near you shortly is this astonishing 3D movie film from NASA.Served up in delicious high definition 3D, the film assures to take viewers on a, “journey through distant Galaxies to discover the grandeur and mysteries of our celestial surroundings.”Still better, there’s some breathtaking footage capturing plucky astronauts embarking on 5 long spacewalks to fix the Hubble telescope.The Astronauts were trained to exercise the washing machine-sized IMAX camera in NASA’s Neutral...

read more

NASA: Astronauts' urine clogs water recycling system on ISS

Astronauts' urine is clogging water recycling system on the International Space Station(ISS).NASA engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, who are investigating a trouble with the system, believed the source was a high concentration of calcium in the astronauts' urine. The 250 million- U.S. dollar-system was set for processing urine into hygienic water for drinking. On the other hand, scientists did not know whether the high calcium concentration is due to bone loss,...

read more

NASA moves forward with Mars exploration plan

NASA has huge plans for its Mars Exploration Program. As it decides the future of one of the two rovers exploring the planet, the agency is looking to the launch of the latest generation of robotic explorer next year. Additionally, NASA tells that the agency is close to a deal to merge its Mars program with that of the European Space Agency, a big step toward manned missions.NASA's Mars rover program is currently heading into its sixth year. The Opportunity and rovers Spirit were launched in 2004...

read more

NASA plans on-time shuttle liftoff despite snag

Engineers scrambling to repair broken hoses on latest Tranquility moduleNASA is still hoping to launch the shuttle Endeavour in early February as engineers scramble to repair broken hoses on the new space station module set to travel aboard the orbiter. Endeavour is slated to launch the latest Tranquility module to the International Space Station on Feb. 7 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But two of the module's four ammonia coolant hoses have unsuccessful standard pre-launch checks, forcing...

read more

Snow

...

read more

Text and music campaigns established to support NASA hacker

Amidst claims extradition will breach US Bill of Rights.An SMS campaign has been established to permit supporters of alleged NASA hacker Gary McKinnon to join a text petition.The text petition, lead by McKinnon's mother Janis Sharp and key supporters, urges UK voters to text 'Gary' to a local number by way of demonstrating their support. Proof of petitioner numbers will be sent on a regular basis to the Home Secretary, as well as to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretaries.Sharp...

read more

NASA observes comet plunging into the sun

Footage of a comet being swallowed by the sun has been captured by NASA's solar and Helioscopic Observatory (SOHO) .The comet belongs to the Kreutz family of comets, named for the Heinrich Kreutz(The German astronomer). They are supposed to have broken off from a much larger comet centuries ago, and orbit close to the Sun. The comet was one of the brightest sun grazing comets that SOHO has noticed in its 14 years of operation. NASA has a video demonstrating the phenomenon, here. The comet was...

read more

Earliest galaxies detected: NASA

US space agency NASA has said that,” Thirteen billion years old ultra-blue galaxies, which were formed around 700 million years after the Big Bang, have been discovered by astronomers.”Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers from University of California have broken the distance limit for galaxies by uncovering the primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that were not seen before.These newly-found galaxies are crucial to recognize the link between the birth of the first...

read more

Just 5 missions left for NASA's space shuttles

Last shuttle flightto space station scheduled for September 2010The sun sets at the back of space shuttle Atlantis on the eve of its Nov. 16, 2009 launch from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., to begin the STS-129 mission.The end is beginning for NASA's 3 aging Space Shuttles, with just 5 more missions on tap this year before the orbiter fleet retires in the fall.That is, unless NASA requires a few more months to fly those remaining missions or President Barack Obama chooses to extend the...

read more

NASA's Kepler finds its first five planets - an odd assortment

NASA's Kepler space telescope is just beginning its 3-year Mission to find Earth-like planets in habitable zones around stars. The first new planets it has found, declared Monday, include two so hot they would melt iron.NASA's planet-hunting telescope Kepler has bagged its first quarry: five new planets Neptune's size and larger, including one with the density of Styrofoam, creating it one of the lightest planets yet found.In addition to the new planets, Kepler results imply that the light output...

read more

Man Cost $330,000 to Buy MMO Space Station

You must be without problems to take out some money for several in-game content, but how about $330,000? In recent times a gamer wins MMO Crystal Palace space station auction for US$ 330,000. Entropia Universe has a "real cash economy" where $1 can buy you 10 PEDs (Project Entropia dollars) and Buzz snatched up the international space station for a cool 3,300,000 PED (USD 330,000).The MMO was intended by Swedish-based MindArk and is a direct continuation of Project Entropia. The auction finally...

read more

Red Planet Rising

Happy New Year everyone! I wish all a safe, healthy and prosperous 2010 as we come into the second decade of the 21st Century! 2009 was a great year for space exploration as space and water telescopes dominated. Water was proven to exist on the Mars and Moon and is thought to be present in moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Hubble Space Telescope was upgraded and repaired and NASA's planetary hunting space telescope Kepler and newest infrared space telescope WISE were launched. Much will be happening...

read more