Astronomy
New kind of Gamma Ray burst is ultra long-lasting
According to astronomer Andrew Levan, there’s an old adage in studying gamma ray bursts: “When you’ve seen one gamma ray burst, you’ve seen … only one gamma ray burst. They aren’t all the same,” he said during a press briefing on April 16 discussing the discovery of a very different kind of GRB – a type that comes in a new long-lasting flavor.
Space station flies through the Moon!
Astrophotographer Dave Walker combined seven 30-second shots of the ISS as it cuts through the sky, and it appears to slice right through the Moon! Dave used a a Canon 600D, Samyang 8mm fish-eye lens, and Vixen Polarie.
This weekend’s Lyrid Meteor shower: How to see it
Feeling a little meteor-starved lately? Me too. It’s been a meteor shower desert since the Quadrantids of early January. That’s about to change. This weekend brings the celestial version of April showers with the annual appearance of the Lyrids. The Lyrids ding the bell at maximum strength this weekend April 21-22 (Sunday night-Monday morning in the Americas) [...]
Habitable worlds? New Kepler planetary systems in images
The Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the “habitable zone,” the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.
Earth from Space
Venture on an epic quest to discover the invisible forces and occurrences that sustain life on this planet and – for the first time – see these processes in action in EARTH FROM SPACE. This sweeping two-hour special reveals the Earth’s deepest mysteries, captured in breath-taking detail, and raises profound questions and challenges the old assumptions of how it all works. Using the latest CGI technology, and joining NASA and the world’s foremost Earth scientists, EARTH FROM SPACE transforms raw satellite data into a visible spectrum, offering viewers authentic, high-definition moving images that vividly illustrate these processes at work.
Ken Mattingly explains how the Apollo 13 movie differed from real life
Many astronauts seem to like the Apollo 13 movie, but being technically minded folk they also enjoy pointing out what actually happened during that so-called “successful failure” that landed safely on this day in 1970.
Watch Live! First launch of Antares Rocket
It’s been billed as “the biggest, loudest and brightest rocket ever to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility” in Virginia, and the commercial company Orbital Sciences Corporation is ready to send their Antares rocket on its maiden test flight. You can watch live here via NASA TV’s Ustream. There is a press briefing at 2 pm EDT (18:00 UTC), and launch coverage starts at 4:00 pm EDT (20:00 UTC), with the launch window open between 5 and 8 pm EDT (21:00 and midnight UTC).
Explosive crater twins on Mars
Dramatic underground explosions, perhaps involving ice, are responsible for the pits inside these two large martian impact craters, imaged by ESA’s Mars Express on 4 January.
