Orbit 17 +++ Space and beyond
galaxies, science, exploration, astronomy (blog)
galaxies, science, exploration, astronomy (blog)

The huge asteroid 2005 YU55 will sweep closely past the Earth – missing us by 319,000 kilometers (about 200,000 miles) – tomorrow. It’ll be the closest known passage of an asteroid this big – but there was an even closer passage to Earth of this same asteroid in 1976, which went undetected. This time, astronomers spotted it ahead of time.
On this November 8, 2011 passage, 2005 YU55 will come closer than the moon’s distance from Earth, but it will not strike Earth or the moon.
The time of closest passage will be November 8 at 5:28 p.m. CST (23:28 UTC).
June 23, 2011 - 11:22 am
Posted in Space, Technology | No comments
A NASA center and the Pentagon’s lead research group are striking financial flint to steel in hopes of sparking a sustained effort to make interstellar space travel a reality.
On Thursday, an official with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that the agency will award a $500,000 grant to the person or group who [...]
April 13, 2011 - 11:59 am
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50 years ago, on April 12th, a human went into space for the first time. Let’s say that again, for emphasis: a human went into space. In a rocket. To space. His name was Yuri Gagarin and he is an undeniable legend.
Sure, his fame might be overshadowed somewhat by those showoff Americans Buzz Adrin and [...]
December 20, 2010 - 11:47 am
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Everyone knows that “the moon on the breast of new-fallen snow gives the luster of mid-day to objects below.” That is, except during a lunar eclipse.
The luster will be a bit “off” on Dec. 21st, the first day of northern winter, when the full Moon passes almost dead-center through Earth’s shadow. For 72 minutes of [...]
September 9, 2010 - 10:52 am
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The two objects were only identified at the weekend by the Nasa-funded Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, during a routine sky scan.
The first asteroid, christened 2010 RX30, was about 65 feet (20 metres) in diameter and flew past at a distance of 154,000 miles early at 9:51am on Wednesday.
The second, called 2010 RF12, [...]
Using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists have detected ice deposits near the moon’s north pole. NASA’s Mini-SAR instrument, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. The craters range in size from 1 to 9 miles (2 to15 km) in diameter. Although [...]
January 20, 2010 - 12:21 am
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During the spacecraft’s approach, the Earth appeared as a crescent. This image of the Earth was taken around the same time by the OSIRIS camera on Rosetta. Credit: ESA 2009 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
On November 13, the European Space Agency’s comet orbiter spacecraft, Rosetta, swooped by Earth for its third and final gravity assist [...]
January 4, 2010 - 3:17 am
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The moon may not be made of Swiss cheese, but it appears to have at least one deep hole, a vertical skylight that could serve as a protective lunar base for future astronauts.
“We discovered a vertical hole on the moon,” an international team of scientists recently announced.
The gaping, dark pit on the near side of [...]
January 3, 2010 - 10:45 pm
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Russia is considering a project to launch a spaceship to try to divert a large asteroid from hitting Earth after 2030, the head of the country’s space program said today.
Anatoly Perminov, head of Roscosmos, tells Voice of Russia radio that Moscow may invite experts from Europe, the United States and China to join [...]
December 30, 2009 - 10:41 am
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For NASA, 2009 proved to be a stellar year, one filled with five extremely successful Space Shuttle missions (one of which repaired the Hubble Space Telescope), the test flight of the Ares I-X rocket, the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope, the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and companion spacecraft the Lunar CRater [...]
December 29, 2009 - 1:51 am
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The coming full moon will be the first New Year’s Eve blue moon – by one definition – since 1990. Credit: Chuck Liddy
On New Year’s Eve, when merrymakers crowd the streets, a blue moon will shine over their festive heads – bringing to the holiday both a night-sky rarity and a decades-old quibble.
Most plainly, a [...]