It’s November and It’s Leonid time!
It’s mid-November and it is that time of year again, time for the Leonid Meteor shower that happens around November 17 or 18. The shower occurs when the Earth crosses paths with the commentary debris of Comet 55P/Temple-Tuttle. When the debris vaporizes when it hits the atmosphere causing what we call the Leonid meteor shower. […]
Insight’s Perfect Landing Spot
NASA has apparently picked the perfect site for the upcoming landing of Mars InSight, a mission managed by NASA and JPL. On November 26, 2018, after a 205 day journey, Insight will touch down on the Elysium Planitia, in the high plains near the Martin Equator just before 3pm EST. It is the Goldie Locks […]
Is Oumuamua Something Else?
First it was an asteroid, then it was a comet, now it’s something else. Remember that interstellar object, Oumuamua, the oblong shaped mas that tumbled through our solar system at incredible speed? Now some scientists at the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics are saying that it is possibly something else entirely. Oumuamua might be artificial […]
Asteroid 2018 EB Passes Earth
On October 7, 2018, Asteroid 2018 EB passed the Earth at 15 lunar distances. Back on April 4, 2018, after astronomer spotted it using the NEOWISE spacecraft, before it had passed at 10 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. 2018 EB is considered a potentially hazardous object because of the asteroids approach […]
Voyager is heading way out there
It’s been 41 years since NASA launched the Voyager 2 probe into space. Fast-forward from 1977 to today and the little probe has travelled nearly 11 billion miles from Earth, and is now passing through the heliosphere. Voyager 2 is rapidly approaching the outer boundary. Scientist are watching as the probe moves closer to exiting […]
Succesful Launch and Landing of Falcon 9
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had a successful night launch and landing on Sunday, October 7, 2018. The rocket lifted off at 7:21 p.m. PST, on schedule, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles. An Earth-observation radar satellite for the Argentina national space agency, SAOCOM-1A was successfully delivered into orbit. Falcon nine made its […]
CASSINI: A year after the Spacecraft’s final act!
The Cassini spacecraft plunged into Saturn last year, September 15, 2017 after orbiting the planet since 2004. It’s the fourth probe to visit the planet from Earth. The 13-year Cassini mission had provided new insights and discoveries about Saturn. Cassini gave us a new scientific perspective on its moons and its rings. The mission also […]
Japan lands two rovers on Asteroid Ryugu
On September 21, 2018, the Japanese space agency, JAXA deployed two tiny rovers to the surface of Asteroid Ryugu after being released by the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft. It was a long four year journey to get to this point of the mission. As a part of the MINERVA II program, the rovers are designed to […]
What are fast radio bursts?
What are fast radio bursts? Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) is a term used in radio astronomy for high-energy pulses of transient radio emissions that lasts on average just milliseconds. Back in August 2017, researchers on the Breakthrough Listen project used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to spot 21 fast radio burst the span […]
Mystery at the Sunspot Solar Observatory… Solved?
Mystery at the Sunspot Solar Observatory… Solved? Sunspot, New Mexico On Thursday, September 6, 2018, the Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico was suddenly closed down and evacuated by the FBI supposedly for security reasons. The facility is run by the Association of Universities for Research Astronomy (AURA). The observatory was closed, along with a […]