PlanetQuest is NASA’s effort to search for new Earths, exoplanets like ours that would probably contain life too. They’re doing some really cool stuff, like this sunflower-telescope combo spaceship—"a cutting-edge effort to take pictures of planets orbiting stars far from the sun." Imagine that—seeing the actual planets!
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This image of twinkling stars is the first picture to be beamed back to Earth by the Gaia telescope—whose mission is to scan the entire sky
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Just about everyone has heard of the Hubble Space Telescope. A space-based observatory on "the highest mountain" the world can provide; it is the technology behind many of today’s great discoveries in space. Started in 1977 and launched into orbit in 1990, it has aided in humans determining the expansion rate of the universe, as well as helping us make numerous other discoveries, both big and small.
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Unless you’re a synesthete, the five senses are pretty straightforward—but designers keep on coming up with cool ways to mix-up the experience for those of us who don’t have the natural ability. Which is what makes the Wassiliscope so neat: This thing transforms color frequencies into corresponding sound frequencies, allowing the user to hear what they see. Totally trippy.
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Flat. Like a streak across space. Thin. Stretched out. How come whenever we see galaxies, they always look like this? NASA has the answer. And it has something to do with how a ball of dough becomes pizza.
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When the Gaia space telescope launches next week, it’s going to attempt the biggest astronomy project of all time: it will try and scan the entire sky, capturing images of at least a billion stars in our galaxy.
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From its launch in 2009, the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory was a busy little satellite. Over its lifetime it made over 37, 000 scientific observations—and this video shows them all, condensed into less than one minute.
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It’s had a good run, but it seems like NASA’s Kepler telescope is down for the count — the space agency says it has stopped repair efforts. The 0.95 meter diameter space telescope launched four years ago, tasked with seeking out Earth-sized planets suitable for habitation. All was going well until the rig’s gyroscopic reaction wheels began to fail, robbing it of the precision aim needed to continue its task. After months of testing, NASA has concluded that it won’t be able to restore the telescope to full working order.
That doesn’t mean the mission is at an end, however — NASA still has to sort troves of previously collected data, thumbing through over 3,500 exoplanet candidates to add to the 135 celestial bodies Kepler has already identified. The hardware may one day see a second life too, as engineers attempt to assess what can be done with the remaining two reaction wheels and the telescope’s attitude control thrusters. Without significant (and now abandoned) repair efforts, Kepler will never be precise enough to continue its primary mission, but NASA is hopeful it will eventually find a new purpose.
Filed under: Misc
There might not be a man on the moon right now—but there may soon be a gazing eye. A new private venture aims to build a long-range telescope on our planet’s little satellite, and it could happen as soon 2016.
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And communal space astronomy is go. Planetary Resources has successfully hit the $1 million crowdfunding target for its ARKYD telescope, which should now be on track for its promised 2015 launch. The project has also racked up 11,000 backers, and that means a new round of add-ons for the extra-committed. Backers can buy a special mission patch ($7), additional selfie photos (from $25) and even a half-size ARKYD replica ($650). There are a few more pragmatic reasons to invest, of course — the company has stretch goals that could bring a second ground station, selfies during the beta phase and even hunts for undiscovered planets. Would-be researchers who still want to pitch in can visit Kickstarter by June 30th.
Filed under: Science
Source: Kickstarter
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