Category: Space Stations

Space stations in orbit or planned

Earth is bombarded with rocks from space — but who gets to keep these ultimate antiques?

NeRD

Every day, about 48.5 tons of space rock hurtle towards Earth. Meteorites that fall into the ocean are never recovered. But the ones that crash on land can spark debates about legal ownership. Globally, meteorite hunting has become a lucrative business, with chunks of alien rock traded online and shipped between countries. Meteorites hold the key to the mysteries of the universe, but increasingly, significant scientific finds are being lost to private collectors. Last year, New Zealand formally recorded an apple-sized meteorite weighing 810g. It fell on Department of Conservation…

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US military practices rescuing astronauts from the sea (photos)

NeRD

A U.S. military joint task force did some training recently off the Florida coast to help with astronaut splashdowns. “Space travel is expected to increase, so the search and rescue alert is going to increase, and we will be ready to answer that call,” Maj. Ryan Schieber, lead planner for Human Space Flight Support (HSFS) in the U.S. Air Force’s 315th Operations Support Squadron, said in a statement. So, as the U.S. sees an uptick in crewed spaceflight operations, the military wants to make sure it can support astronaut retrieval…

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Mysterious Mars mounds may bolster case for ancient Red Planet ocean

NeRD

Thousands of hills and mounds on Mars have been found to contain layers of clay minerals, which formed when running water interacted with the rocks during a period when Mars’ northern reaches were flooded. “This research shows us that Mars’ climate was dramatically different in the distant past,” Joe McNeil of the Natural History Museum in London said in a statement. “The mounds are rich in clay minerals, meaning liquid water must have been present at the surface in large quantities nearly four billion years ago.” Mars is a planet…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 145 —We’re ‘Star Bound’ with a guide to America’s space program

NeRD

On Episode 145 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik meet the authors of a new book about spaceflight called “Star Bound: A Beginner’s Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard’s Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between,” Emily Carney and Bruce McCandless III. Related: ‘Star Bound’ serves up a ‘snarky approach to space history’ and the American space program (exclusive) Emily started the popular Facebook group Space Hipsters, now 66,000 members strong, and Bruce is a retired lawyer and space enthusiast who also happens…

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Invisible ‘flickering’ on the sun could predict potentially dangerous solar flares hours in advance

NeRD

Shining loops of plasma on the surface of the sun “flicker” hours before they unleash potentially dangerous solar flares, a new study shows. The new findings could help create more reliable space weather forecasts, researchers say. Solar flares are violent outbursts of electromagnetic radiation that shoot from the sun when invisible magnetic field lines at the sun’s surface get twisted up until they eventually snap. These outbursts most commonly occur around sunspots — dark patches where magnetic field lines poke through our home star’s surface — and often pull up…

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What is Section 31? The ‘Star Trek’ spy organization explained

NeRD

The United Federation of Planets may hold itself up as a futuristic utopia but it also has a dark underbelly. Covert intelligence organization Section 31 carries out the missions Starfleet pretends don’t happen, bending the rules in the name of keeping everyone else safe. Since making its first appearance in “Deep Space Nine“, Section 31 has broken cover in numerous “Star Trek” TV shows and movies. Now, Starfleet’s guilty secret is getting its very own movie, as Michelle Yeoh’s Philippa Georgiou is brought back into service with an all-new team…

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Scientists discover exoplanet with supersonic winds — the fastest in the known universe

NeRD

Astronomers have found winds on a distant world that blow at a phenomenal 5.6 miles per second (9 kilometers per second), or 20,500 miles per hour (33,000 kilometers per hour) — the fastest winds ever measured on a planet. The faraway world, a gas giant called WASP-127b that was discovered in 2016, orbits a star 520 light-years from Earth. It zips around its host star in just four days, following a slightly skewed orbit. The exoplanet is also likely tidally locked to its star the same way the moon is…

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Blue Origin to simulate moon gravity on Jan. 28 New Shepard suborbital launch

NeRD

Blue Origin will launch the 29th mission of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle next week, on an uncrewed research flight that will simulate lunar gravity conditions. The mission, known as NS-29, is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin‘s West Texas launch site on Tuesday (Jan. 28) at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT; 10 a.m. local Texas time). The company, which was founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, will webcast the action live, beginning 15 minutes before liftoff. New Shepard is a reusable rocket-capsule combo named after Alan Shepard, the first…

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NASA honors fallen astronauts with ‘Day of Remembrance’ ceremony

NeRD

NASA honored its fallen space explorers during its annual “Day of Remembrance” on Thursday (Jan. 23). The agency held events at a number of its facilities around the nation, including Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida and Johnson Space Center in Houston. The proceedings commemorated the lives lost in NASA’s three space tragedies — the Apollo 1 fire in January 1967, the space shuttle Challenger explosion in January 1986 and the shuttle Columbia disaster in February 2003. “It is an emotional and solemn reminder that we cannot let the decades…

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Growing up and going out: Beyond the cradle (op-ed)

NeRD

Rick Tumlinson is the founder of SpaceFund, a venture capital firm investing in space startups. He also founded the Space Frontier Foundation, Earthlight Foundation, and New Worlds Institute and was a founding board member of the X Prize Foundation. He contributed the following piece — an edited essay from his upcoming book “Why Space: The Purpose of People,” to be published in the spring of 2025 — to Space.com’s Expert Voices section. My daughter is about to turn 12. To her, I am an ancient being; to me, she is…

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