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Scientific American - Space

http://sciam.com/

Science news and technology updates from Scientific American

Category Covered: Physical Science

Posts per week: 2

Recent Articles

10 Views of Earth from the Moon, Mars and Beyond [Slide Show]

 

Published 5 days ago at Scientific American - Space

In 1990 the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1, careening across the solar system on its way to becoming the most distant human-made object in space, took a glimpse back at the planet it had left 13 years earlier. Six billion kilometers away, Earth was barely ...

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Novel Nova: Stellar Blast Powered by Helium May Leave a Tantalizing Remnant

 

Published 12 days ago at Scientific American - Space

A stellar explosion known as a nova that was detected in 2000 formed a two-lobed shell of material ejected from the star. Shaped like a bow tie, it continues to swell at great velocity. But, curiously, the coat of ejecta flowing outward from the star ...

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Spirit rover's first dash for freedom is a short one

 

Published 14 days ago at Scientific American - Space

A NASA rover mired in soft soil on Mars made its first escape attempt in months Tuesday, but the maneuver lasted less than a second before safety precautions shut it down. [More]

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Qapla' ! Christie's Star Trek auction [Repost]

 

Published 16 days ago at Scientific American - Space

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Atlantis lifts off as space shuttle program continues to wind down

 

Published 16 days ago at Scientific American - Space

Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off Monday afternoon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, beginning an 11-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The orbiter's six-member crew will deliver some 13 metric tons of parts to the ...

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LCROSS impact plumes contained moon water, NASA says

 

Published 19 days ago at Scientific American - Space

A spacecraft that performed a choreographed two-part dive to the lunar surface in October churned up detectable levels of water ice, NASA announced Friday . [More]

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NASA prepares effort to free stuck Spirit Mars rover

 

Published 19 days ago at Scientific American - Space

Six months after the Mars rover Spirit became trapped in a patch of soft soil, its controllers are preparing to send a set of commands that they hope will free the robotic explorer, NASA announced Thursday . [More]  ...

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Tweak Gravity: What If There Is No Dark Matter?

 

Published 27 days ago at Scientific American - Space

Theorists and observational astronomers are hot on the trail of dark matter , the invisible material thought to account for puzzling mass disparities in large-scale astronomical structures. For instance, galaxies and galactic clusters behave as if ...

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Parachute failure before splashdown left Ares 1-X booster badly dinged

 

Published 10/30/2009 at Scientific American - Space

NASA's launch of the Ares 1-X test rocket Wednesday was a success --but, as it turns out, a qualified one. The rocket's first booster stage, which splashed down in the ocean as planned six minutes after launch, was found to be significantly dented ...

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NASA's Ares 1-X test rocket lifts off successfully

 

Published 10/28/2009 at Scientific American - Space

A prototype NASA rocket for a planned crew launcher lifted off into the Florida sky Wednesday morning, providing an unmanned flight demonstration of the new technology. The 100-meter-tall Ares 1-X, powered by a solid rocket booster, flew from ...

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Weather, stray cargo ship and stuck cover conspire to postpone NASA's Ares 1-X test launch

 

Published 10/27/2009 at Scientific American - Space

NASA's towering Ares 1-X rocket , a test vehicle for a planned crew launcher to replace the space shuttle, remains on the ground at Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the space agency scrubbed its Tuesday launch attempt. The launch team will try ...

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What Galileo and Scientific American have in common: Honored Italian heritage

 

Published 10/26/2009 at Scientific American - Space

In the year of Galileo, it is only fitting that the Italian Heritage and Culture Committee of New York would structure its annual celebration of Italian heritage in part around the famed Italian astronomer. The organization's Italian Heritage ...

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Allegations of spying and links to terrorism land scientists in hot water

 

Published 10/21/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Two researchers, one a physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider in Europe and the other a space scientist with leading roles on several lunar satellite missions, have run afoul of the authorities this month for alleged terrorist links and ...

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Galileo's Contradiction: The Astronomer Who Riled the Inquisition Fathered 2 Nuns

 

Published 10/21/2009 at Scientific American - Space

The astronomical discoveries made by Galileo Galilei in the 17th century have secured his place in scientific lore, but a lesser known aspect of the Italian astronomer's life is his role as a father. [More]  ...

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Galileo's Contradiction: The Astronomer Who Riled the Inquisition Fathered Two Nuns

 

Published 10/21/2009 at Scientific American - Space

The astronomical discoveries made by Galileo Galilei in the 17th century have secured his place in scientific lore, but a lesser known aspect of the Italian astronomer's life is his role as a father. [More]  ...

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An Astronomer's Astronomer: Kepler's Revolutionary Achievements in 1609 Rival Galileo's

 

Published 10/20/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Four hundred years ago this year, two events marked what scientists and historians today regard as the birth of modern astronomy. The first of them, the beginning of Galileo's telescopic observations , has been immortalized by playwrights and ...

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Dozens of discoveries vault known exoplanet tally over 400

 

Published 10/19/2009 at Scientific American - Space

A suite of some 30 newly discovered planets in other solar systems, unveiled today, brings the catalogue of such extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, to more than 400. [More]

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How to Get More Bicyclists on the Road

 

Published 10/16/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Getting people out of cars and onto bicycles, a much more sustainable form of transportation, has long vexed environmentally conscious city planners. Although bike lanes painted on streets and automobile-free “greenways” have increased ...

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T-minus 18 months and counting: Virgin Galactic and the future of space tourism

 

Published 10/15/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Twenty-five years ago when Sir Richard Branson (sans the "sir," at the time) called up Boeing and asked for a spare 747, few would have predicted the brash entrepreneur would so radically disrupt the formerly staid business of air travel. ...

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Another Century of Oil? Getting More from Current Reserves (preview)

 

Published 10/14/2009 at Scientific American - Space

On fourteen dry, flat square miles of California’s Central Valley, more than 8,000 horsehead pumps--as old-fashioned oilmen call them--slowly rise and fall as they suck oil from underground. Glittering pipelines crossing the whole area suggest ...

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What do we really know about the Kuiper Belt? Fifth dispatch from the annual planets meeting

 

Published 10/13/2009 at Scientific American - Space

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico--It smacked of a cunning plan. The organizers of last week's planets conference put one of the best talks in the very last session of the very last day. Most scientists had either left for the airport or the beach. I almost ...

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LCROSS strikes Earth's moon as other moons continue to puzzle: Fourth dispatch from the annual planets meeting

 

Published 10/9/2009 at Scientific American - Space

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico--"We could have just stayed in bed" was one comment I overheard this morning from planetary scientists who had woken up early to see NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) crash into the lunar ...

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Planetary bombardments, past and future: Third dispatch from the annual planets meeting

 

Published 10/8/2009 at Scientific American - Space

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico--A fascinating idea came up in an informal chat I had yesterday with asteroid expert Erik Asphaug of the University of California, Santa Cruz. The early solar system was a veritable shooting gallery. Our moon is thought to have ...

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Target Audience: NASA's Friday Moon Crash Offers Plenty of Opportunities for Amateur Viewing

 

Published 10/8/2009 at Scientific American - Space

The astronomy community, amateurs and professionals alike, will turn its attention to the moon early tomorrow morning in the hopes of confirming the long-suspected presence of water ice trapped in permanently shadowed areas near the lunar poles (not ...

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What caused Saturn to lurch? Second dispatch from the annual planets meeting

 

Published 10/8/2009 at Scientific American - Space

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico--I first heard about Matt Hedman's talk while going out to dinner on Tuesday night. Best talk of the meeting, I was told. Everywhere I went yesterday, I kept hearing about this guy Matt Hedman. A former professor of mine chided ...

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From Carbon Planets to the Lakes of Titan: Dispatch from the Annual Planets Meeting

 

Published 10/7/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Part of the fun of coming to astronomy conferences is seeing the nonplussed reaction of local people in restaurants and bars--it's not often you get a crowd of people sweeping through your town to talk about Titanian lakes, lunar soil, and the ...

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Astronomers Discover Solar System's Largest Planetary Ring Yet around Saturn

 

Published 10/7/2009 at Scientific American - Space

A speculative search for a belt of debris stemming from one of Saturn's outer moons has turned up what appears to be the largest known planetary ring in the solar system. [More]

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Astronomers Discover Solar System's Largest Planetary Ring Yet around Saturn [Update]

 

Published 10/7/2009 at Scientific American - Space

A speculative search for a belt of debris stemming from one of Saturn's outer moons has turned up what appears to be the largest known planetary ring in the solar system. [More]

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Lost Garden Cities: Pre-Columbian Life in the Amazon (preview)

 

Published 10/7/2009 at Scientific American - Space

When Brazil established the Xingu Indigenous Park in 1961, the reserve was far from modern civilization, nestled deep in the southern reaches of the vast Amazon forest. When I first went to live with the Kuikuro, one of the reserve’s principal ...

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Sun Down: High-Energy Cosmic Rays Reach a Space Age Peak

 

Published 10/6/2009 at Scientific American - Space

It's been a slow two years for solar activity, with 2008 bringing the greatest number of blank, or sunspot-free, days in nearly 100 years . And now this year, albeit there are signs of stirring on the sun , is on pace to top 2008 as the ...

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17th-century Brueghel paintings trace the early, mysterious history of the telescope

 

Published 10/5/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Thanks to the much-heralded International Year of Astronomy, this much we know: Galileo used a telescope to observe the moon in 1609 . But the inventor of the revolutionary resolutionary device remains unknown, and its early history is muddied by  ...

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(Un)inflated Expectations: Airless Lunar Wheel Concept Gets a Workout on Moon Rover Prototypes [Slide Show]

 

Published 10/5/2009 at Scientific American - Space

A flat tire is nuisance enough for the lucky motorist that has a spare, a jack, and a safe place to pull over. For an astronaut in a bulky spacesuit, exposed to the harsh lunar environment, it could be a mission wrecker--or worse. [More]  ...

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Biotech's Plans to Sustain Agriculture (preview)

 

Published 10/5/2009 at Scientific American - Space

If environmental and economic sustainability is ultimately a matter of balancing the human race’s consumption and productivity, then the agricultural industry leans heavily on both sides of that scale. Its drain on the earth’s resources ...

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Water Lust: Why All the Excitement When H2O Is Found in Space?

 

Published 10/4/2009 at Scientific American - Space

When NASA announced last month the finding of water ice in several impact craters on Mars , and either water or hydroxyl widely dispersed on the moon 's surface, the solar system became a little more familiar because it seemed a tad more hospitable ...

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You Snooze, You Lose -- Weight

 

Published 10/1/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Lose weight while you sleep? It sounds too good to be true--but recent research indicates that there is a connection between how much you weigh and the amount of shut-eye you get per night. Two hormones, ghrelin and leptin, help to control appetite. ...

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NASA spacecraft to buzz Mercury a third and final time today

 

Published 9/29/2009 at Scientific American - Space

In a pair of flybys by a robotic explorer last year , planetary scientists began to unravel some of the mysteries of Mercury, a planet that is difficult to study from Earth and that had not been visited by a spacecraft since the 1970s. [More]  ...

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Why We Really Want to Go Back to the Moon

 

Published 9/29/2009 at Scientific American - Space

This year marked the 40th anniversary of two momentous events related to space exploration. One, the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969, was a hallmark technological achievement. The other, the complete first run of Stanley Kubrick’s ...

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Groovy Ganymede: New Map Helps Reveal Origins of Mysterious Features on Solar System's Biggest Moon

 

Published 9/28/2009 at Scientific American - Space

In the search for extraterrestrial life, Jupiter's moon Ganymede, the largest in the solar system, is no Europa. The salty subsurface ocean it likely harbors is much farther below its surface than is Europa's  probable liquid ocean, and it's ...

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Meteorite impacts turn up nearly pure water ice in Mars's mid-latitudes

 

Published 9/24/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Planetary scientists looking for water ice on Mars have employed a number of tactics to great success in their search. The Phoenix lander dug it up ; orbiting radar measurements have seen it under insulating blankets of debris. ( Frozen water ...

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Water On The Moon

 

Published 9/24/2009 at Scientific American - Space

[ The following is an exact transcript of this podcast. ] For all you space buffs who like to keep track of where the water is, it looks like you can add our very own moon to your list. Because according to a trio of papers appearing in the journal  ...

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Wylie Coywolf: The coyote-wolf hybrid has made its way to the Northeast

 

Published 9/23/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Bigger than coyotes but smaller than wolves, their howl is high-pitched and their diet includes deer and small rodents. They are "coywolves" (pronounced "coy," as in playful, "wolves"), and they are flourishing in the ...

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Stream of Evidence from 3 Spacecraft Indicates That the Moon Has Water

 

Published 9/23/2009 at Scientific American - Space

A hotly anticipated experiment will test the theory next month that the moon's permanently shadowed polar craters harbor pockets of water ice. A NASA spacecraft called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will perform a ...

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Glow Away: NASA Lights Up the East Coast Sky with a Noctilucent Cloud

 

Published 9/22/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Clouds come in countless shapes, from fluffy cotton candy to wispy lines that streak across the sky, but they are all formed from one simple ingredient--water vapor. In an experiment conducted September 19, scientists created the first artificial, ...

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Wasted Space: U.S. Military Looking for Ideas on How to Curb the Threat of Orbiting Junk

 

Published 9/22/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Gazing up into the sky on a clear night, the heavens can appear as pristine as a mountain stream. But in truth, at least in Earth's vicinity, the trash factor in space may be more akin to what is found in New York City's East River. The region known ...

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NASA's moon orbiter returns promising early data in the hunt for lunar water ice

 

Published 9/17/2009 at Scientific American - Space

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched in June to survey the moon with an eye toward a human return there, is already hard at work. At a news conference from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., NASA presented preliminary ...

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Recovered meteorite points to an unusual origin

 

Published 9/17/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Meteorites can reveal a lot about the composition and formation of their parent bodies, but such postcards from beyond come with no return address, making their provenance difficult to establish. Often, astronomers must observe the object's inbound ...

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Solar System Dwarf Planet "Haumea" Has a Mystery Spot

 

Published 9/16/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Haumea, the mini planet whose detection set off an international and as yet unresolved war of words in 2005 between the two teams claiming its discovery, is back on the astronomy scene with more intrigue. [More]  ...

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A 360-Degree Virtual Reality Chamber Brings Researchers Face to Face with Their Data

 

Published 9/15/2009 at Scientific American - Space

Scientists often become immersed in their data, and sometimes even lost. The AlloSphere , a unique virtual reality environment at the University of California, Santa Barbara, makes this easier by turning large data sets into immersive experiences of ...

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Jupiter borrowed a passing comet to make a moon for 12 years

 

Published 9/15/2009 at Scientific American - Space

The middle of the 20th century was an eventful time in terms of Earth's geopolitics. In the spring of 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was taking shape , and simmering tensions in Korea hinted at the war that would begin there ...

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NASA picks a moon crater for LCROSS probe's double smash landing

 

Published 9/11/2009 at Scientific American - Space

One of NASA's moon probes, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) , will complete a relatively simple mission next month: releasing a spent rocket stage toward a shadowy crater, then following it to see what the impact stirs up ...

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