NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Our growing dependency on satellites for all forms of communication has made the problem of space weather even more acute.
© 2016 Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.
Films set in the ancient world can no longer adequately live up to the demands of the ‘epic’. Instead, we should look to films set in space.
Specialized chamber to study dusty plasma in the lab.
CASPER
The vast majority of matter in the universe is plasma: electrically charged gas. Scientists are untangling how dust interacts with plasma both in space and experimentally closer to home.
Luis Argerich/Flickr
The annual Perseid meteor shower gives us a glimpse of remnants from the early formation of the solar system.
Mars mission with plasma rockets concept.
NASA
Getting to Mars with current rocket technology will use massive amounts of fuel to move very small cargoes. There is a more fuel-efficient way.
Right, time for a little zero gravity and chill…
NASA
What viewing on the International Space Station tells us about life among the stars.
There are jobs to be created if Australia does more to tap into the billion-dollar space industry.
Flickr/inefekt
Increasing Australia’s role in the billion-dollar global space industry has hardly raised a mention in this year’s federal election campaign.
NASA
Scientists are working out how to grow plants in space, ready to use them as food when we visit other planets.
NASA
NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission has had its funding cut. Here’s why politicians should think again.
CubeSats upon release from the International Space Station.
NASA Johnson
Just about anyone can get a tiny, cheap satellite into orbit these days. As we consider how to deploy them responsibly, inspiration comes from an amateur community of enthusiasts.
Four identical NASA spacecraft fly near the sun-facing boundary of Earth’s magnetic field (the blue wavy lines).
NASA
After half a century of trying, scientists have finally caught a glimpse of the magnetic process that fuels space weather and the northern lights.
kepler all planets may.
The increasingly rapid pace of exoplanet discoveries must mean it is only a matter of time until astronomers find another Earth.
We’re on the hunt for life – what do we do when we find it?
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
A philosopher argues that now is the time to figure it out, before we make the inevitable discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Spacewalk.
NASA
Why weightlessness in space is about balancing forces rather than a lack of gravity.
The plan to use lasers to send mini-spaceships to the stars.
Flickr/Dave Campbell
It’s an ambitious plan to send a micro-spaceship to our stellar neighbour but is this possible with today’s technology or even technology in the near future?
Are we soon to visit Alpha Centauri (left)?
Skatebiker/ Wikipedia
Building a tiny starship may be doable. The big challenge will be making sure it survives all the hazards in interstellar space.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasts off.
SpaceX/flickr
Yes, it really is rocket science.
Gene Cernan driving a lunar rover in December 1972.
NASA
The Last Man on the Moon is much more than a biographical documentary – it is a gripping account of human endeavour.
What are you thinking? Robots and humans working together need to understand – and even trust – each other.
NASA Johnson/flickr
People and machines need to be able to interact and communicate effectively. Right now we – and they – can’t. But without that, we risk missing the potential benefits of collaboration.
New Horizons continues to help unravel the icy dwarf planet’s secrets.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
After last summer’s Pluto flyby, the New Horizons spacecraft started sending data back to Earth – at 2 kilobits per second. Here’s some of what scientists have learned so far from that rich, slow cache.