People have often wondered what Earth would look like if it had Saturn's rings. JPL's Kevin Gill lets them know with his new photoseries
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NASA's Dawn spacecraft has unveiled a new patch of intriguing bright features in the most recent series of striking close-up images taken just after the probe reached the lowest altitude it will ever reach during the mission.
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Electromagnets, which rely on electrical current to generate magnetic fields, are used to powering everything from medical equipment to consumer electronics.
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SpaceX is on course to move ahead with an ambitious spaceflight agenda, trying a 2nd rocket recovery landing of their Falcon 9 booster in barely 4 weeks time and upcoming this Sunday, Jan. 17, says Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of SpaceX.
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Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina puts on its final act this week through late January, as it crosses through northern hemisphere skies. Here's how to find it, what to expect, and some great images from Universe Today readers. The time to catch this bright binocular comet is this week!
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The geocentric model of the universe, in which the Sun, planets and stars revolved around the Earth, was the accepted view of the cosmos for millennia.
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Zinnia experimental plants growing aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have staged a dramatic New Year's comeback from a potential near death experience over the Christmas holidays, when traces of mold were discovered.
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When space tourism gets underway, companies will have many options for getting people to and from the Moon, some faster than others.
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"X" marks the spot that's illustrative of "convective churning" resulting from subsurface planetary heating, as seen in a fascinating new super high resolution image received from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2015.
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In this interview, we talk to NASA's Scott Bolton about the Juno Mission to Jupiter.
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The Solar System's planets have varied and interesting atmospheres, ranging from incredibly thin exospheres to ones that could literally crush a person.
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Exactly 12 Years ago this week, NASA's now famous Spirit rover touched down on the Red Planet, starting a spectacular years long campaign of then unimaginable science adventures that ended up revolutionizing our understanding of Mars due to her totally unexpected longevity.
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Have you ever wished that there was an instruction manual for life? "Success Strategies from Women in STEM" aims to be that book for women in research – a 'portable mentor' to help individual researchers find their way.
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If you took a picture of the Sun every day, always at the same hour and from the same location, would the Sun appear in the same spot in the sky? This fine image, compiled by astrophotographer Giuseppe Petricca from Italy, proves the answer is no.
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In 1543, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus revolutionized astronomy by proposing his heliocentric model of the Universe
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Now that SpaceX has successfully and safely demonstrated the upright recovery of their Falcon 9 booster that flew to the edge of space and back on Dec. 21 - in a historic first - the intertwined questions of how did it fare and what lies ahead for the intact first stage stands front and center.
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Watch Venus pass less than five arc minutes from Saturn on Saturday, January 9th in one of the closest conjunctions of two naked eye planets in 2016. The Moon will also pay the pair a visit this week, as comet US10 Catalina hovers near naked eye visibility in the dawn. It's a great way to kick off astronomy in 2016!
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Happy New Year 2016 from the International Space Station and Beyond! Behold Earth ! Courtesy of our Human and Robotic emissaries to the High Frontier we can ring in the New Year by reveling in gorgeous new views of our beautiful Home Planet taken from the space station and beyond.
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There are several space stories we're anticipating for 2016 but one story might appear -- to some -- to belong in the realm of science fiction: in the coming year Elon Musk will likely reveal his plans for colonizing Mars.
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NASA WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY, VA - Assembly and testing of a significantly upgraded version of Orbital ATK's commercially developed Antares rocket has kicked into high gear and is on target for rebirth - as the clock ticks down towards its 'Return to Flight' by approximately mid-2016 from a launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia, company managers told Universe Today during a recent up close visit to see the actual flight hardware.
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Pluto has been explored, and now the USPS has released new stamps to celebrate this accomplishment. And that's not all, more planets, the Moon and Star Trek?
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The planet Mercury has no moons, but why is that the case? The reason is due to a combination of its small size, orbit, and weak gravity.
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Still looking for the perfect calendar for 2016? Don't start the year without the new Year In Space Wall Calendar!
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Missions to Mars, Jupiter and asteroids are on tap in 2016. Back here on Earth, we may just see the first direct detection of gravitational waves, and some serious exoplanet and SETI hunts get underway... and could 2016 become the year of the heavy lift rocket? Here's the big space stories we're watching in 2016.
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Mountains are formed by geological and tectonic forces, resulting in massive formations that are amazing and awe-inspiring.
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Buildup of the first of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner crew spaceships is ramping up at the company's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility (C3PF) - the new spacecraft manufacturing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
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Gravity is a fundamental force in our universe. And on the planets in our Solar System, it is dependent on the size, mass, and density of the body.
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As history closes in on 2015, assembly of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reached a historic milestone as the installation of the primary mirrors onto the telescope structure reached the halfway point to completion and marks the final assembly phase of the colossal observatory.
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Comets, conjunctions, eclipses and more await astronomy fans worldwide in 2016, as well as a fine opposition of Mars and a rare transit of Mercury across the face of the Sun. Get ready for astronomy 2016! Camping out under dark skies. Image credit and copyright: Michelle Nixon/MNixon Photography
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Elon Musk's dream and ultimate goal of establishing a permanent human presence on the Red Planet in the form of "A City on Mars" took a gigantic step forward with the game changing rocket landing and recovery technology vividly demonstrated by his firm's Falcon 9 booster this past Monday, Dec. 21
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Just in time for the holidays, NASA's Curiosity rover is celebrating Christmas 2015 at a Red Planet Paradise - spectacular "Namib Dune." And she marked the occasion by snapping her first ever color self-portrait with the mast mounted high resolution Mastcam 34 mm camera.
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A nebula is a common feature of our universe, consisting of gas particles and dust which are closely associated with stars and planetary formation.
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NASA managers have just made the difficult but unavoidable decision to scrub the planned March 2016 launch of the InSight lander, the agency's next mission to Mars, by at least two years because of a vacuum leak that was just detected in the probes flawed seismometer instrument which cannot be fixed in time.
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"There and back again," said SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk after the amazing successful 'Return to Flight' launch of the firms Falcon 9 rocket and history making vertical return landing at Cape Canaveral, Fla, on Monday evening, Dec. 21.
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Like all stars, our Sun has a life-cycle that began with its birth (4.57 billion years ago) and will end in approximately 6 billion years.
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"The Falcon Has Landed!" gushed exuberant SpaceX officials following tonight's (Dec 21) history making ground landing of the firms spent Falcon 9 boost stage barely 10 minutes after if launched on a critical mission to deliver a constellation of communications satellites to Earth orbit.
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All is "GO" in the final hours of the countdown to leading up to tonight's, Dec. 21, the high stakes blastoff of an upgraded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on its 'Return to Flight' mission carrying a flock of commercial satellites to orbit that also features a breathtaking and history making flyback of the rockets first stage to a soft landing on the ground that could open a majestic era of Rocket Reusability - if all goes well.
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The waxing gibbous Moon will occult the bright star Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus the Bull this Wednesday evening one more time in 2015. Observers across Europe and northern Asia will witness the event. Here's our guide to observing the occultation and more.
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A "significantly upgraded" SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands erect on the Florida space coast today, Sunday, Dec. 20, and is poised to make history Monday evening with a
spectacular nighttime blast off and daring first ever surface landing attempt of the boosters first stage at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, that could be accompanied by sonic booms - if all goes well.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced today (Dec. 19) that his company plans to launch an upgraded version of its Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday night, Dec. 20, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the first time since it failed in flight six months ago on a mission for NASA to the space station, after successfully completing a test of the rockets engines late Friday night.
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NASA has just received a significant boost in the agency's current budget after both chambers of Congress passed the $1.1 Trillion 2016 omnibus spending bill this morning, Friday, Dec. 18, which funds the US government through the remainder of the 2016 Fiscal Year.
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It's been 47 years since Apollo 8 captured the famous Earthrise photo. Now the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's version is out. And it's spectacular.
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The Big Bang Theory explains how the Universe has evolved over last 13.8 billion years, starting from a singularity to its current size.
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