Month: September 2022

This article was originally published at The Conversation. (opens in new tab) The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Alice Gorman (opens in new tab), Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University On Aug. 20, 1977, 45 years ago, an extraordinary spacecraft left this planet on a journey like no other. Voyager 2 was going to show us, for the first time, what the outer solar system planets looked like close-up. It was like sending a fly to New York City and asking it to report back. Voyager…

On Sept. 5, 1977, Voyager 1 began its epic journey through deep space with a glorious morning launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Voyager 1 initially launched on a mission to explore the outer planets. After flying by Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, the spacecraft took a sharp turn and started heading straight out of the solar system. Voyager 1 Spacecraft’s Road to Interstellar Space: A Photo Timeline Voyager 1, launched in September 1977, is currently exploring the farthest edges of the solar system. (Image credit: NASA) (opens in…

NASA’s venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a key milestone. The Voyager 1 probe launched 45 years ago, on Sept. 5, 1977, just weeks after its twin Voyager 2 but soon overtaking it. The two spacecraft were designed to fly past Jupiter and Saturn, taking advantage of a favorable solar system alignment. At the time, no one expected the spacecraft to still be working more than four decades later. But now, the Voyagers are stretching toward a round 50 years in space. Voyager 1 is currently more than 14.6 billion…

The cartoon chaos that is “Star Trek: Lower Decks” has returned for its third season and you can watch the first episode free on YouTube.  At the end of the second season we saw  Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) being arrested and led away in handcuffs by a team from Starfleet Command for the destruction of the Pakled planet, Ensign Boimler (Jack Quaid) gets to swim about with two beluga whales and Ensign Mariner (Tawny Newsome) almost drifts out into space, but is rescued at the last minute by her rival,…

Don Lind, a former NASA astronaut who helped plan humanity’s first moonwalk before launching on the space shuttle, has died at the age of 92. Lind’s death on Tuesday (opens in new tab) (Aug. 30) was first reported by the Herald Journal in Logan, Utah. “Don is as close to the true ‘Renaissance Man’ — Leonardo da Vinci’s ideal of a man who could do everything and do it well — as exists in our day and age,” his family wrote in an obituary (opens in new tab) issued on…

On Sunday, Sept. 4, a spectacular mountain range on the moon will move into view for skywatchers.  The mountains mark the rim of Mare Imbrium, also known as the great Imbrium Basin, a vast lava plain on the lunar surface created by a massive impact from space nearly 4 billion years ago. The Mare Imbrium is the largest basin on the near side of the moon with a diameter of approximately 721 miles (around 1160 kilometers). Though just around half the size of the South-Pole-Aitken Basin on the moon’s far…