By Paul Scott Anderson, on May 10th, 2016
Artist’s conception of the many different exoplanets that have been discovered by Kepler so far. Image Credit: NASA/W. Stenzel
For several years now the Kepler Space Telescope, as well as other telescopes, has been discovering an increasing number of exoplanets, with over 2,000 such confirmed worlds found so far (and nearly 5,000 candidates). […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on February 11th, 2016
Computer simulation of gravity waves produced by the collision of two black holes. Image Credit: NASA
Today was a big day for physicists and space science, with the announcement of the first confirmed detection of gravitational waves, 100 years after they had been predicted by Albert Einstein as a major aspect of his […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 6th, 2016
Artist’s conception of Dawn orbiting Ceres. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Dawn spacecraft just recently entered its lowest and final orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, providing the closest look ever at the puzzling world. Dawn will, of course, be taking thousands more high-resolution photographs, but what else will it be doing during the […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on December 15th, 2015
View overlooking part of High Dune, which is covered in smaller sand ripples. The image is white-balanced, to show how the scene would look under more Earth-like conditions. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Since landing in 2012, the Curiosity rover has seen a lot of varied terrain within Gale crater, including ancient riverbed gravel, sandstone […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 26th, 2015
The first of 18 mirrors being installed in the James Webb Space Telescope, in the clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Photo Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just took a big step toward reality with the successful installation of the first of its many flight mirrors. This […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 18th, 2015
The edge of a dark sand dune field can be seen in this white-balanced Curiosity image from sol 1115 (Sep. 25, 2015). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Mars is often referred to as a desert world, being bone-dry for the most part, with dust and sand blanketing most of the surface. Some regions are covered […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 11th, 2015
Artist’s conception of GJ 1132b, an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a nearby star. Conditions on this world, however, are probably more like Venus than Earth. Image Credit: Dana Berry
Astronomers have discovered another Earth-sized exoplanet that is the closest one to our own Solar System found so far, but it might not be a […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 8th, 2015
New Horizons has completed the four course corrections needed to send it on its way to its next target in the Kuiper Belt, 2014 MU69. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
After having completed a wildly successful flyby of Pluto and its moons, the New Horizons spacecraft was given a new target, much farther out in […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on October 8th, 2015
The blue skies of Pluto, as seen in this image from New Horizons. Pluto is backlit by the Sun, revealing the multilayered hazes in the atmosphere. Soot-like particles in the atmosphere scatter sunlight in a way that the atmosphere appears blue, similar to what happens on Earth. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
As new images […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on September 29th, 2015
Image from July 14, 2015, showing the double-lobed or “rubber duck” shape of Comet 67P and outgassing of water vapor, gas, and dust. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, or 67P, has been the focus of intense study by the Rosetta spacecraft since 2014. One of the key mysteries […]
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