Category: Solar System

Our solar system

Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

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Bill Nye was recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his dedication to science education. Nye, popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American science educator, television presenter and CEO of the Planetary Society. Nye was among 19 honorees to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom — United States’ highest civilian honor — at a White House ceremony held on Jan. 4. “Bill Nye has inspired and influenced generations of American students as ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy,’” officials wrote in a statement from…

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NASA won’t decide on Mars Sample Return plan until mid-2026

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NASA is considering two ways to get its precious Mars samples back to Earth, but the agency won’t pick a winner for another 18 months or so. Analysis of those samples, which are being collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover, could reveal a wealth of data about Mars and its history — including, perhaps, whether the Red Planet has ever hosted life. NASA is therefore eager to get the Mars material — about 30 cigar-sized, sealed tubes containing rock cores and sediment — home, and then on to laboratories around the…

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Scientists find ‘spooky’ quantum entanglement on incredibly tiny scales — within individual protons

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Scientists have used high-energy particle collisions to peer inside protons, the particles that sit inside the nuclei of all atoms. This has revealed for the first time that quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons, experience the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. Entanglement is the aspect of quantum physics that says two affected particles can instantaneously influence each other’s “state” no matter how widely separated they are — even if they are on opposite sides of the universe. Albert Einstein founded his theories of relativity on the notion that nothing…

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How NASA and Sierra Space are preparing for Dream Chaser space plane’s 1st flight to ISS

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LOUISVILLE, Colorado — The scene here is intense. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Sierra Space Dream Chaser spaceplane draws near the International Space Station. There is focused face time here as mission controllers monitor their computer screens and diligently monitor incoming data. Anxiety mounts within the private company’s control center as the craft makes its way through various perfunctory pauses — cautiously approaching the International Space Station (ISS) and enters the approach ellipsoid. The outstretched Canadarm2 robotic arm grapples a fixture on Dream Chaser‘s Shooting Star cargo module. A go-ahead…

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Springtime on Mars brings frost avalanches, gas geysers and explosions (photos)

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Instead of chilled glasses and champagne bubbles to ring in the New Year, how about gassy geysers and frosty avalanches? That’s exactly what you can expect as the Martian New Year begins on the Red Planet with the onset of spring across its Northern Hemisphere. The term “walking in a winter wonderland” on Mars consists more like sprinting across the surface, having to dodge the crash of cliffsides and explosions of carbon dioxide. Unlike our northern hemisphere on Earth, on the Red Planet, the new year starts off with the…

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US Space Force broke its launch record in 2024 with 93 liftoffs

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An impressive 93 United States Space Force launches lifted off from Florida’s coast in 2024, setting a new Space Force record for the second year in a row. Space Launch Delta 45 (SLD 45), headquartered at Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, is a unit of the United States Space Force responsible for managing space launch operations on the East Coast, including launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Last year, SLD 45 — the world’s busiest spaceport in 2024 — saw a record-breaking 93…

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BluShift Aerospace hopes to launch 1st suborbital rocket from Maine in 2025

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After a successful engine burn test in October, Maine-based bluShift Aerospace is planning for its next big milestone: a suborbital flight test toward the end of 2025. The rocket company, located at Brunswick Landing in southern Maine, was founded over a decade ago. In January of 2021, the company carved its niche in space history when it became the first to commercially use non-toxic biofuel to power its inaugural rocket prototype, Stardust 1.0, on a successful test launch. According to bluShift CEO and founder Sascha Deri, the rocket’s “secret sauce”…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 142 —2025 in Space

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2025 in Space – The Year’s Most Anticipated Space Missions & Developments – YouTube Watch On On Episode 142 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik talk about 2025 in space! It’s going to be an exciting year, kicking off with the first launch attempt for Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy booster and another test flight of Starship. Then we’ll see a new asteroid sampling mission from China, the first test flight of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander to the moon, and the launch of the first-ever…

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‘Silo’ Season 2, ‘The Book of Quinn’: Juliette suffers, Walker snitches, and Lukas decodes Quinn’s letter

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You can feel it in the air, not just the advent of the fresh new year, but the narrative momentum building towards a turbulent climax in Apple TV+’s “Silo” Season 2 as we entered this eighth episode Friday night titled, “The Book of Quinn.” Last week’s chapter called “The Dive” found Juliette resurfacing from successfully starting the ground water pump to find Solo missing and a trail of blood and hatchet providing ominous clues to his disappearance. Lukas Kyle is inching closer to decoding Salvador Quinn’s secret letter, while Bernard…

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Peter Parker battles a rogue alien hunter in Marvel’s ‘Predator vs. Spider-Man’

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Since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and its vault of valuable intellectual property back in 2019, the House of Mouse has been slowly tapping into its fresh stable of Fox film franchises to create mashups and crossovers with its more popular Marvel Comics characters and so far the results are electrifying. That dreadlocked interstellar hunter known as the Predator has already infiltrated two Marvel miniseries courtesy of veteran writer Benjamin Percy, with 2023’s “Predator vs. Wolverine” and 2024’s “Predator vs. Black Panther.” Now Percy is back to pounce on a…

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