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

Coming to an IMAX theatre near you soon is this astonishing 3D movie film from NASA.
Served up in delicious high definition 3D, the film promises to take viewers on a, “journey through distant galaxies to explore the grandeur and mysteries of our celestial surroundings.”
NASA IMAX 3D movie features astonishing Hubble repair footageEven better, there’s some breathtaking footage capturing plucky astronauts embarking on five long spacewalks to fix the Hubble telescope.
The astronauts were trained to use the washing machine-sized IMAX camera in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab over the course of eight months
See the rest of the article here…
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 [...]
March 31, 2011 - 11:31 am
Posted in Space, Technology | No comments
NASA has been implementing an Open Government Plan for nearly a year, and this week they held the first NASA Open Source Summit in Mountain View, CA. But the roots of open source at NASA go back much further, to its founding legislation in 1958, which designed NASA as a source that would “provide for [...]
December 25, 2010 - 2:06 pm
Posted in Space | No comments
In May of 2010, Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton detected a vast reservoir of gas lying along a wall-shaped structure of galaxies about 400 million light years from Earth. In the image above the spiral and elliptical galaxies are shown in the Sculptor Wall along with the newly detected intergalactic gas, [...]
December 20, 2010 - 11:47 am
Posted in Space | No comments
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 [...]
December 3, 2010 - 1:19 am
Posted in Space | No comments
Micro-organism found in Mono Lake, California View loc8id map: loc8id.com/7zjI8E Source: Sathish J
NASA has discovered a new life form, a bacteria called GFAJ-1 that is unlike anything currently living in planet Earth. It’s capable of using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything. Updated.
NASA is saying that this is [...]
December 3, 2010 - 1:15 am
Posted in Space, Technology | No comments
The total number of stars in the Universe “is likely three times bigger than realized.” Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum says there are “possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars,” dramatically increasing the possibility of finding alien civilizations.
According to the new study just published in Nature, new observations on the red end of the [...]
September 9, 2010 - 10:52 am
Posted in Space | No comments
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 [...]
For nearly three decades (since 1981), the Space Shuttle was an iconic symbol of the American space program and the country’s primary way of reaching space. Now as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is working on its replacement, it’s putting the famous spacecraft up for sale.
NASA in December 2008 first offered the Shuttles [...]
January 20, 2010 - 11:17 am
Posted in Space | No comments
The container with Tranquility is lifted into pad 39A’s gantry this morning. Credit: NASA-KSC
The Tranquility module that’ll be a new room with a view for the International Space Station was trucked to space shuttle Endeavour’s launch pad overnight, destined for blastoff next month.
Packed in a special transport canister shaped like the shuttle’s 60-foot-long payload [...]