Coming up on New Year’s Eve, earthlings tend to celebrate milestones of the year passed, as well as look expectantly toward the future. Here, Planetsave brings you some of the best space coverage of 2014 in various media. The overall winner has to be the six-minute ultra-high definition timelapse video, with custom soundtrack, compiled by
PlanetSave would be remiss if we didn’t say something today to recognize that 45 years ago humans first set foot on another celestial body. Launched on an expendable multistage liquid-fueled Saturn V rocket on July 16th, 1969, Apollo 11 crew left Earth for the first human mission to land on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot
It’s not just the annual income tax deadline that expires tomorrow. The Moon will also be going out—though like taxes, it will reappear, and 364 days sooner. In the wee hours of tomorrow morning, stargazers in the Western Hemisphere will start losing sight of the moon. For 78 minutes, the southern half of Earth’s umbral
Mars in opposition (NASA graphic). The Fourth Rock comes closer to us on Tuesday, April 8, 2014, than it has for the past seven years. Not only is the Red Planet in opposition—-directly in line with both earth and the sun—but the opposition is “favorable.” Mars has a slightly elliptical orbit and it will be
NASA says the ejecta from this newly formed 100-foot (30 -meter) crater on Mars extend over 9 miles (15 km) from the center of impact. The crater is at 3.7 degrees north latitude, 53.4 degrees east longitude on the Red Planet. Scientists viewing the images of this area from JPL’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Context Camera
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided scientists with the clearest evidence to date of carbon-dioxide snowfalls on Mars, revealing the only known example of carbon-dioxide snow falling anywhere in our solar system. Frozen carbon-dioxide is better known here on Earth as dry ice, and requires temperatures of around minus minus 125 Celsius (193 degrees Fahrenheit), much, much colder than what
Scientists have long believed that planet Earth is the only planet in our solar system where plate tectonics existed, but new research out of the University of California Los Angeles has reversed this position, showing that Mars in fact also hosts this geological phenomenon. “Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us
NASA has narrowed down the potential landing sites for its rover, Curiosity. It has decided to land closer to its destination for science operations, but also closer to the foot of a mountain slope, which may create problems. The rover Curiosity is scheduled to land on Mars in August, and look for signs of
A team of scientists, led by Alfred S. McEwan of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, may have identified the tell-tale signs of “seasonal flows” (small channels attributable to downhill water movements) on certain Martian slopes. The potentially game-changing discovery, which was enabled by an analysis performed by an undergraduate student, has got the astronomy, planetary and astrobiology science communities rather excited.
[social_buttons] When I first read the news that NASA was going to start experimenting on monkeys with radiation to study the effects of deep space travel, my heart sunk. As an anthropologist who has studied non-human primates I have seen up close the emotions, the feelings, and the physical qualities we share with our evolutionary
July 20th, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic flight to the moon, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon. 40 years ago, space flight inspired such awe that astronauts were hailed as heroes and celebrities by men, women, and children alike.
