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space

SPACE: That’s One Dusty Galaxy You Have There

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space dust

Astronomers hate dust as much as the rest of us ― even more, perhaps. It’s one thing to get a little dust in your eye that takes your vision out of focus. Now imagine this kind of dust problem on a galactic scale where it hinders scientists trying to focus their telescopes into space. That’s part of the challenge faced by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, reports Space.com. They’re creating an instrument that will offer specific information on how fast the universe is growing. This device ― the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument ― will create a … Read more

SPACE: Virtual Flight Over Mars

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Mars

Although Donald Trump has signed a bill authorizing money to fund future exploration of Mars,tourism to the Red Planet is still a long way away. Still, a person can dream, and one Finnish filmmaker is making that dream look like reality. Jan Fröjdman spent three years turning photos taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter into a four and a half minute travelogue of the planet’s surface. By David Moye – Full Story at The Huffington Post

Colonizing Space

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Beyond Earth

In Beyond Earth: Our Path to a New Home in the Planets, Charles Wohlforth and Amanda R. Hendrix propose colonizing Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and the second largest moon in the solar system. They reject constructing colonies on Mars and the Moon, claiming Titan offers the most resources for creating a permanent human settlement. Even though I don’t buy their premise, Wohlforth and Hendrix have written a book that nicely sums up the current knowledge on human space travel. What’s damning and depressing is their long litany of obstacles we face living in space. Over the years I’ve … Read more

SCIENCE: If An Asteroid Target’s Earth, We’re…

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asteroid - pixabay

It’s the stuff of science fiction: Scientists discover that an asteroid is heading for Earth, and we don’t have any measures in place to prevent the space rock from hitting us. But this scenario is actually more plausible than many people realize.= There are about 15,000 asteroids in our immediate galactic neighborhood. On March 2, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spotted a 10-foot-wide space rock that passed Earth, “diving in closer than many communications and weather satellites,” Space.com reports. The asteroid came within 9,000 miles of Earth, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies. The moon, by comparison, is about 239,000 miles … Read more

POP CULTURE: Sally Ride Becomes a Lego Figurine

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Sally Ride Lego

Move aside Batman, for the first gay woman and American woman in space Sally Ride is to be immortalized with a Lego figure. A set of five new figurines, based on real female scientists, engineers and astronauts, will be out in late 2017. Honoring five pioneers of the American space program, the design was created by science writer Maia Weinstock who won the Lego Ideas competition. Full Story at Gay Star News

SPACE: Fly Me to the Moon

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Moon - pixabay

Well, here’s a bit of space news we weren’t expecting: Today, future Martian overlord and SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that in 2018, the company will fly two private citizens around the Moon in its Dragon 2 spacecraft, carried by its extremely powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. While the voyagers’ names have not been disclosed, according to SpaceX, a “significant deposit” has already been made. “This is a really thing that’s happened,” Elon Musk told reporters at a press conference. “We’ve been approached to do a crewed mission beyond the Moon…[and these passengers] are very serious about it. We plan to … Read more

Announcement/Deleted Scene: Ardulum: First Don, by J.S. Fields

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Ardulum: First Don

J.S. Fields has a new FF sci fi romance out: Ardulum. The planet that vanishes. The planet that sleeps. Neek makes a living piloting the dilapidated tramp transport, Mercy’s Pledge, and smuggling questionable goods across systems blessed with peace and prosperity. She gets by—but only just. In her dreams, she is still haunted by thoughts of Ardulum, the traveling planet that, long ago, visited her homeworld. The Ardulans brought with them agriculture, art, interstellar technology…and then disappeared without a trace, leaving Neek’s people to worship them as gods. Neek does not believe—and has paid dearly for it with an exile … Read more

SPACE: Cosmic Triple Treat Tomorrow Night

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comet - pixabay

Comet Turn your eyes to the sky this Friday night and prepare for a series of spectacular celestial sights. A penumbral lunar eclipse, a full moon and a comet will all be visible from across North America ― weather permitting. The full “Snow Moon,” so-called because February is usually the snowiest month in the U.S., is set to appear slightly darker than usual as it crosses through a peripheral part of the Earth’s shadow. By Lee Moran – Full Story at The Huffington Post

SPACE: New Image of Tethys, Saturn’s “Death Star”

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Tethys - Nasa

NASA says it resembles an eyeball. But it’s hard to look at Tethys, one of the moons of Saturn, and not see the Death Star, especially in the image just released by the space agency: That distinctive mark is the Odysseus crater and its surrounding peaks. NASA said: “Like any solar system moon, Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) has suffered many impacts. These impacts are a prime shaper of the appearance of a moon’s surface, especially when the moon has no active geological processes. In this case, a large impact not only created a crater known as Odysseus, … Read more

Cassini Mission to End in Fiery Plunge Into Saturn

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Saturn/Titan

Of the 173 known moons orbiting the eight major planets of our solar system, only one ― Saturn’s Titan ― has an atmosphere, lakes and streams. And that’s not all. There’s also speculation that Titan ― half the size of Earth ― could harbor life forms or be a possible future home for Earthlings. The provocative moon was even featured in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan, which tells the story of a millionaire on a quest for the ultimate meaning of existence. To study this remarkable moon, NASA launched its Cassini spacecraft in 1997. After maneuvering through … Read more