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Moffet Field, California - Every now and then a space rock hits the world's media - sometimes almost literally. Threatening asteroids that zoom past the Earth, fireballs in the sky seen by hundreds of people and mysterious craters which may have been caused by impacting meteorites; all make ESA's planned mission Don Quijote look increasingly timely. Asteroid and comet impacts have played an important role in the history of life on Earth.
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| ©NASA JPL |
| This is an artist's concept of an Earthlike planet around another star |
Houston TX - NASA's blueprints for an outpost on the moon are shaping up. The agency's Lunar Architecture Team has been hard at work, looking at concepts for habitation, rovers, and space suits. NASA will return astronauts to the moon by 2020, using the Ares and Orion spacecraft already under development. Astronauts will set up a lunar outpost - possibly near a south pole site called Shackleton Crater - where they'll conduct scientific research, as well as test technologies and techniques for possible exploration of Mars and other destinations.
Goddard Space Flight Center - A NASA satellite has captured the first images of a collision between a comet and a solar hurricane. It is the first time scientists have witnessed such an event on another cosmic body. One of NASA's pair of Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, known as STEREO, recorded the event April 20.
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| ©NASA |
| This is a still taken from a visualization showing Comet Encke and the coronal mass ejection erupting from the surface of the Sun. |
BEIJING -- Three high-tech companies have joined technology in the search for evidence that a 980-foot-long feature on Turkey's Mt. Ararat might be what's left of Noah's Ark.
The high-tech effort involves GeoEye, INTA Space Turk, along with the talents of Satellite Imaging Corporation. Satellite Imaging Corporation of Houston, Texas has created a 3D terrain model of the so-called "Mt. Ararat anomaly" -- making use of stereo IKONOS satellite image data to create a flyover of the site in remote northeastern Turkey.
The high-tech effort involves GeoEye, INTA Space Turk, along with the talents of Satellite Imaging Corporation. Satellite Imaging Corporation of Houston, Texas has created a 3D terrain model of the so-called "Mt. Ararat anomaly" -- making use of stereo IKONOS satellite image data to create a flyover of the site in remote northeastern Turkey.
Early Polynesians sailed thousands of miles for exploration and trade, suggests a new study of early stone woodworking tools.
The analysis confirms traditional tales of vast ocean voyages and hints that a trading network existed between Hawaii and Tahiti as early as a thousand years ago. (See a photo gallery of the artifacts and early voyages.)
The analysis confirms traditional tales of vast ocean voyages and hints that a trading network existed between Hawaii and Tahiti as early as a thousand years ago. (See a photo gallery of the artifacts and early voyages.)
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center - Cape Canaveral, Florida - The Ares rockets that will take over for the space shuttle and carry humans to the moon are closer to lifting off from the drawing board. Designs and modifications are under way at Launch Pad 39B, the Launch Control Center and the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to accommodate the first test flight of an Ares I rocket in April 2009. At the same time, workers in Kennedy's Assembly and Refurbishment Facility and Parachute Refurbishment Facility are working on the components for the first launch test.
Paris - The United States has pledged to colonize the Moon by 2020 and send astronauts to Mars, but many scientists say dangerous and costly manned space missions should be a thing of the past, not the future.
Intelligent robots and satellites such as those already exploring the Red Planet, they say, do a good job and are a lot less fragile than human organisms too easily stranded millions of miles from home.
Intelligent robots and satellites such as those already exploring the Red Planet, they say, do a good job and are a lot less fragile than human organisms too easily stranded millions of miles from home.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - Workers at the Kennedy Space Center moved the space shuttle Discovery out to its ocean-side launch pad on Sunday in preparation for a construction mission to the International Space Station slated to begin in three weeks.
Riding atop an Apollo-era mobile transporter, Discovery was rolled out of the massive Vehicle Assembly Building shortly before 7 a.m. for the 3.5-mile trek to the launch pad. It arrived about six hours later.
Riding atop an Apollo-era mobile transporter, Discovery was rolled out of the massive Vehicle Assembly Building shortly before 7 a.m. for the 3.5-mile trek to the launch pad. It arrived about six hours later.
Comment: To find out more about comets and how often they actually collide with our planet, read: Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!