Shuttlewagon delivers Artemis rocket boosters to KSC
Furthermore, it has been 10 years since the last SRBs arrived at KSC for the final NASA Space Shuttle mission. After the ten 10 SRB segments are stacked vertically they will form the two twin 177-foot-tall (53.9-meter) five-segment Solid Rocket Boosters for NASA’s gargantuan SLS Moon/Mars rocket. Together the twin SRBs will provide more than …
This Week in History: June 14-20
JUNE 14, 1770: The renowned French comet hunter Charles Messier discovers a moderately bright comet in Sagittarius. 2½ weeks later this comet passed just 0.015 AU from Earth, the closest confirmed cometary approach to Earth in history. The comet, named after Swedish mathematician Anders Lexell, who computed its orbit, was later perturbed into a much …
Comet of the Week: LINEAR C/2001 A2
Perihelion: 2001 May 24.52, q = 0.779 AU At the beginning of the 21st Century the discovery of comets and near-Earth asteroids was dominated by the first of the comprehensive sky surveys, the LIncoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program run by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and based at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, that …
Special Topic: Lunar and Planetary Impacts
Ever since the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei turned his primitive telescope towards the moon on November 30, 1609 and saw them for the first time, we’ve known that the moon is covered with craters. These come in all sizes, from very large ones several hundred km across down to meter-size and smaller. For a long …
Mars Exploration Word Search
NASA and the United Arab Emirates are launching separate missions to Mars as early as next month. Although unconfirmed, it has been reported that China also may be sending a rover and orbiter to the Red Planet in July or August. Since 1960, more than 50 missions have been sent to Mars, with varying success. To …
Perseverance and Ingenuity ready to explore Mars
Preparations have continued to go smoothly for next month’s targeted launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission to the Red Planet. The mission includes a car-sized rover as well as the first helicopter to ever be sent to another planet. The rover’s primary mission is to search for signs of ancient microbial life, as well as …
This Week in History: June 7-13
JUNE 7, 2013: A team led by Dutch astronomer Nienke van der Marel announces their discovery of a planet-forming – and comet-forming – disk of material surrounding the young star Oph-IRS 48 in the constellation Ophiuchus, using data obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile. An ALMA image of this disk …
Comet of the Week: PANSTARRS C/2017 K2
Perihelion: 2022 December 19.67, q = 1.797 AU I’ve hinted in some of the earlier presentations of “Ice and Stone 2020” that, for the past few years, we have been in a slow period when it comes to bright comets. Indeed, for “Great Comets” – discussed in a previous “Special Topics” presentation – the most …
Special Topic: “Small Bodies” in Culture and Literature
Although they may not be as big a presence in our overall human culture and literature as the moon and the other planets of our solar system are, the “small bodies” of our solar system are nevertheless present. There a number of misperceptions about them, perhaps more so than there are for the planets. Consider, …
NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission Crossword
NASA is upping its game with the next mission to the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 mission will include a car-size rover based largely on the design of the Curiosity rover. Also attaching a ride to Mars with the new rover is a small helicopter that will test powered flight on another world for the …
Dragon Endeavour delivers astronauts to ISS after historic flight
A pair of veteran NASA astronauts flying aboard a commercial SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft safely docked at the International Space Station ISS) this Sunday morning just 19 hours after the first human launch from US soil for the first time in nine years on a history-making and flawless blastoff from the Florida Space Coast. NASA …
SpaceX launches astronauts into orbit on historic flight
NASA astronauts launched from American soil for the first time in nine years and accomplished the history-making event aboard a commercial SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft soaring from the Florida space coast and bound for the International Space Station (ISS) – to the cheers of tens of thousands of spectators gathered from around America and three …
This Week in History: May 31-June 6
MAY 31, 2020: Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4 will pass through perihelion at a heliocentric distance of 0.25 AU. A previous “Comet of the Week,” Comet ATLAS initially showed potential for becoming a bright object, but it now appears to have all but disintegrated as it has approached perihelion. It is traveling in the same orbit …
Comet of the Week: SOHO C/1998 K10 and C/1998 K11
C/1998 K10’s Perihelion: 1998 June 1.88, q = 0.006 AU C/1998 K11’s Perihelion: 1998 June 2.06, q = 0.005 AU Various previous “Ice and Stone 2020” presentations have discussed the impact that the joint NASA/ESA SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission – and in particular the onboard LASCO C2 and C3 coronagraphs – has had …
Special Topic: The K-T Event
For many people, one of the most fascinating periods of Earth’s natural history is the Mesozoic Era, which spanned from roughly 252 million years ago to 66 million years ago. This period of time is often called the “Age of Dinosaurs,” and indeed these large reptiles were the dominant animals on Earth for well over …
QuizMe: SpaceX
If all goes according to plan, at 4:33 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 27, Space X will launch the first humans into orbit from American soil since the STS-135 mission of Space Shuttle Atlantis in July 2011. The upcoming launch will occur from the same LC-39A pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida that was used …
This Week in History: May 24-30
MAY 24, 1981: American astronomer Harold Reitsema and his colleagues, observing from Arizona, detect a possible moon of Neptune during an apparent occultation of a background star. This object was confirmed by Voyager 2 during its flyby of Neptune in August 1989 and is now known as Larissa and designated as Neptune VII. MAY 24, …
Comet of the Week: “Caesar’s Comet” C/42 K1
Perihelion: 44 B.C. May 25.0, q = 0.22 AU The appearance of a bright comet is certainly a stimulus of important scientific investigations, and, under the right circumstances, in today’s society can also be a focus for popular culture, at least for a while. In more ancient times, however, when comets were still widely considered …
Special Topic: Large Ground Meteorites
The general topic of meteorites was discussed as a “Special Topics” presentation four weeks ago. The large majority of meteorites that are known are not especially large, being of the order of a few kg in mass; with only a handful of exceptions, even the larger ones tend to have a mass of no more …
Space Shuttle Atlantis Word Search
As the workhorse of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet, Atlantis flew 33 missions between 1985 and 2011. The orbiter visited Russia’s Mir space station seven times and the International Space Station 12 times. Astronauts launched interplanetary probes from the payload bay, and conducted the final servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope. We’ve hidden 36 words related …