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space

Pride in Space!!!!

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Rainbow Flag in Space

Now there’s a new reason to seriously start investigating the possibility of civilian space travel: one of our favorite non-profit organizations just declared the universe LGBT-friendly. Planting Peace’s latest display of solidarity with the queer community involves a Pride flag, a high altitude balloon and a GoPro camera. The group, which regularly launches social activism campaigns to raise awareness about issues like LGBT rights and deworming children in developing countries, used the balloon to elevate a rainbow flag up through the Earth’s atmosphere. It eventually reached its peak altitude approximately 21.1 miles above the planet. The flag remained airborne, floating … Read more

Asteroid Named for Freddie Mercury

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Asteroid Freddy Mercury

Freddie Mercury will be leaping through the sky, as an asteroid named after the Queen singer on what would have been his 70th birthday. The gay superstar will have his name given to Asteroid17473, which was discovered in 1991, the year of his death. International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Centre gave the honor. By Joe Morgan – Full Story at Gay Star News

SpaceX Rocket Explodes On Launch Pad

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SpaceX

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, meant to launch a satellite this weekend, exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Reports suggest the explosion occurred during a static fire test of the rocket’s engines. The Falcon 9 was getting ready to launch the Amos 6 satellite, a communications probe for the Israeli satellite operator Spacecom. The mission was scheduled for 3AM ET Saturday morning. Prior to all launches, SpaceX conducts a static fire test, in which the rocket’s engines are turned on while the vehicle is constrained. It’s a routine procedure the company has done many times before. Full Story … Read more

Juno’s First Image From Jupiter

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jupiter

This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter’s extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “We can’t wait to see the first view of Jupiter’s poles. Full Story from NASA

News: Stunning Photo of Pluto

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Pluto

This ethereal scene captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft tells yet another story of Pluto’s diversity of geological and compositional features—this time in an enhanced color image of the north polar area. Long canyons run vertically across the polar area—part of the informally named Lowell Regio, named for Percival Lowell, who founded Lowell Observatory and initiated the search that led to Pluto’s discovery. Full Story at Joe.My.God

NASA’s Retro Space Tourism Posters

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NASA tour poster

Stuck for holiday ideas this year? NASA might be able to help. The world-famous organization has commissioned three colorful new posters from Seattle-based design agency Invisible Creature, promoting three (fictional) space tours. Commissioned by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the posters tease a grand tour of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, as well as a trip to see the exploding geysers of Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth-largest moon. Full Story at Gay Star News

News: Do Gas Planets Contain Water?

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Exo-Planets

NASA scientists discover that several Jupiter-sized exoplanets previously thought to be dry in fact contain water: “‘Our results suggest it’s simply clouds hiding the water from prying eyes, and therefore rule out dry hot Jupiters,’ Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz and a co-author on a paper published. ‘The alternative theory to this is that planets form in an environment deprived of water, but this would require us to completely rethink our current theories of how planets are born.’ The University of Deleware’s John Gizis, who studies brown dwarfs, a kind of ‘failed star’ that evolve similarly … Read more

NEWS: NASA Releases Salty New Video of Dwarf Planet Ceres: WATCH

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Ceres

NASA this week released a very cool video of our solar system’s dwarf planet Ceres, a composite of images taken by the Dawn spacecraft. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt. The clip includes a flyover view of Occator Crater, home of Ceres’ brightest area. False color was used to determine differences in surface materials, and examine bright spots on the object. The bright material, NASA says, is consistent with salt, silicate, and sulfates. Original Article at Towleroad.com

News: New Giant Telescope Aims to Answer the Question: Is There Anybody Out There?

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Lima telescope

On a remote hilltop 8,000 feet above sea level in Chile’s Atacama Desert, scientists hope to answer one of the most fundamental questions facing humankind: Is there life elsewhere in the universe? That’s one of various goals of the Giant Magellan Telescope, or GMT, now in the early stages of construction and scheduled to start scanning outer space in 2021. Once it does, it’s expected to offer views of the farthest depths of the universe ever achieved. With seven curved mirrors giving it a record optical surface 80 feet in diameter, the GMT will have the sharpest images of any … Read more