Rosetta’s lander lasted just 60 hours on a comet before bouncing into the dark shadows of a cliff, where its solar panels couldn’t power the spacecraft. Why didn’t it carry a more reliable power source, say a nuclear battery like one that’s unfailingly fueled Voyager for decades? It’s a simple question with a fascinating answer, one that begins with the Cold War and ends with the future space exploration. Read more…
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We Are Running Out of the Nuclear Fuel That Powers Space Travel
Investigators are still trying to figure out exactly what went wrong in with the tragic crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo . While the National Transportation Safety Board has been looking into an issue with the braking system , the agency has released details from surviving pilot Peter Siebold about how he managed to escape the exploding spacecraft. Read more…
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SpaceShipTwo’s Surviving Pilot Ejected Into -70 Degree Air at 50,000 Feet
Last month, the biggest sunspot in 22 years traversed across the Sun. Labelled AR 2192, it was big enough to see without the need for a telescope. This awesome timelapse animation can show you what you missed. Read more…
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This Ultra-HD timelapse shows the biggest sunspot in 22 years
Following the tragic accident on Friday which saw Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fail catastrophically, engineers are now scrabbling to understand the cause. In a new briefing , the National Transportation Safety Board has explained that the craft d eployed its braking system prematurely. Read more…
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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Deployed Its Braking System Prematurely
Back in 2011, a group of alcoholics masquerading as scientists managed to somehow persuade their bosses that sending (very small) vials of whiskey to space was a viable ‘experiment’. Four years on, the whiskey has eluded the clutches of the ISS astronauts, as has landed safely back on Earth . Read more…
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Space Whiskey Safely Returned To Earth
For nearly two years, the Air Force’s X-37B autonomous space plane has been circling around the Earth doing who knows what. Now it’s finally coming back to Earth , carrying all its secrets with it. Read more…
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The Air Force’s Mysterious Spy Plane Is Landing After 2 Years in Space
The Russian press agency ITAR-TASS is reporting something so surprising that I’m having a hard time believing it: Cosmonauts have found microorganisms on the exterior of the International Space Station. Russian scientists are shocked by this discovery and can’t really explain how it is possible. Read more…
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Space station cosmonauts find life in the vacuum of space
Well, this is embarrassing. Remember how a Harvard team found the first direct evidence of cosmic inflation right after the Big Bang ? Well, now it’s published its findings—and it’s backtracking on its original claims. Read more…
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Big Bang Discovery Researchers Backtrack on Original Claims
Elon Musk just said that his SpaceX spaceships will get humans to Mars by 2026, with or without NASA. It may seem cocky, but coming from a man who has built this entire company so he can die on Mars —and to “help ensure the survival of humanity”—those words are not to be taken lightly. Read more…
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Elon Musk vows for 2026 manned Mars mission—wants self-sustaining city
A new report from Twopcharts has found that 44% of the world’s Twitter accounts have yet to send a Tweet . With approximately 974 million Twitter accounts, that’s an awful lot of dead air. As the Wall Street Journal points out, however, this could mean that people, scammers, or bots simply signed up for an account and never came back—or that there are hordes of shy people out there waiting for the moment to strike. Do you have a Twitter account you have never used? If not, why not? [ Wall Street Journal ] Read more…
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44% Of All Twitter Accounts Have Yet To Send A Tweet