This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Eloise Marais, Associate Professor in Physical Geography, UCL The commercial race to get tourists to space is heating up between Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. On Sunday 11 July, Branson ascended 80 km to reach the edge of space in his piloted Virgin Galactic VSS Unity spaceplane. Bezos’ autonomous Blue Origin rocket which launched July 20, coinciding with the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Though Bezos loses…
Read MoreMonth: July 2021
US Interns, Texas, Bulgarian Students to Hear from Space Station Astronauts
Students across the globe have opportunities this week to hear from astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Read MoreCan we stop Earth from heating up?
All About Space (Image credit: Future) This article is brought to you by All About Space. All About Space magazine takes you on an awe-inspiring journey through our solar system and beyond, from the amazing technology and spacecraft that enables humanity to venture into orbit, to the complexities of space science. In 2021, Earth reached a bleak milestone: The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hit 150% of its value in preindustrial times, according to the U.K. Met Office. To prevent the worst effects of climate change, the world needs…
Read MoreNASA Previews Science on Next Northrop Grumman Space Station Mission
NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 2, to discuss science investigations and technology demonstrations launching on Northrop Grumman’s 16th commercial resupply mission for the agency to the International Space Station.
Read MoreFifty Years Ago in Photos: Apollo 15 Astronauts Explore the Moon
See photos — some familiar and some rarely seen — from the Apollo 15 mission, which launched place 50 years ago today. The post Fifty Years Ago in Photos: Apollo 15 Astronauts Explore the Moon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreCelebrating the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 15
This image from May 11, 1971, is a high angle view showing the Apollo 15 spacecraft on the way from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Pad A, Launch Complex 39.
Read MoreNASA’s Mars helicopter soars past 1-mile mark in 10th flight over Red Planet
NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity has flown its first mile on the Red Planet. The small chopper surpassed the 1-mile (1.6 km) mark of its total flight distance on Saturday (July 24) when soared over a rocky region called “Raised Ridges” at its Jezero Crater home. The sortie was the 10th and highest trip yet for Ingenuity, which arrived on Mars with NASA’s Perseverance rover in February. Ingenuity’s first flight occurred in April. “With the Mars Helicopter’s flight success today, we crossed its 1-mile total distance flown to date,” officials with…
Read More4.6 billion-year-old meteorite found in horseshoe footprint
A crumbling hunk of rock found in a field in England is a rare meteorite from the earliest days of the solar system, dating back about 4.6 billion years. The meteorite was found in Gloucestershire in March by Derek Robson, a resident of Loughborough, England, and the director of astrochemistry at the East Anglian Astrophysical Research Organisation (EAARO). The meteorite was sitting in the imprint of a horseshoe left behind in a field, according to Loughborough University. The space rock is a carbonaceous chondrite, a rare category that makes up…
Read More52-foot-tall ‘megaripples’ from dinosaur-killing asteroid are hiding under Louisiana
Ancient “megaripples” as tall as five-story buildings are hiding deep under Louisiana, and their unique geology indicates that they formed in the immediate aftermath of the asteroid strike that killed the nonavian dinosaurs, a new study finds. The 52-foot-tall (16 meters) megaripples are about 5,000 feet (1,500 m) under the Iatt Lake area, in north central Louisiana, and date to the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, when that part of the state was underwater, the researchers said. The megaripples’ size and orientation suggest that they formed…
Read MoreBoeing Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2: Live updates
Refresh 2021-07-23T00:18:15.531Z (Image credit: Kim Shiflett/NASA) The CST-100 Starliner capsule has passed its flight readiness review (FRR) for the upcoming liftoff, which will kick off the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) mission to the station, NASA and Boeing representatives announced today (July 22). Read the full story here. Over the weekend, engineers mated the Starliner spacecraft to its Atlas V rocket, marking a key milestone ahead of the mission’s launch next week. See the photos here.
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