Astronomy Cast Ep. 346: Area 51
Who knows what mysteries lurk at the military’s Area 51 complex in Nevada? Conspiracy theorists and UFO chasers think it’s a big alien coverup. But it’s probably something more boring, like advanced...
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New Horizons Wakes Up for the Summer
While many kids in the U.S. are starting their school summer vacations, New Horizons is about to get back to work! Speeding along on its way to Pluto the spacecraft has just woken up from hibernation,...
View ArticleAstronomy Cast 350: SpaceShipOne
SpaceShipOne is the spacecraft created by Scaled Composites to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize in 2003. It was the first privately built spacecraft to reach 100 km in altitude, twice in two weeks,...
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A New Image of Europa Emerges
Eureka – it's Europa! And a brand-new image of it, too! (Well, kinda sorta.)The picture above, showing the icy moon's creased and cracked surface, was made from images acquired by NASA's Galileo...
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How Do Gravitational Slingshots Work?
Have you ever heard that spacecraft can speed themselves up by performing gravitational slingshot maneuvers? What's involved to get yourself going faster across the Solar System. Let’s say you want to...
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The End is Near: NASA’s MESSENGER Now Running on Fumes
For more than four years NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has been orbiting our solar system's innermost planet Mercury, mapping its surface and investigating its unique geology and planetary history in...
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Cassini to Perform Its Final Flyby of Hyperion
On Sunday, May 31, the Cassini spacecraft will perform its last close pass of Hyperion, Saturn's curiously spongelike moon. At approximately 9:36 a.m. EDT (13:36 UTC) it will zip past Hyperion at a...
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Could We Make Artificial Gravity?
It's a staple of scifi, and a requirement if we're going to travel long-term in space. Will we ever develop artificial gravity? It’s safe to say we’ve spent a significant amount of our lives consuming...
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Is Jupiter Our Friend Or Enemy?
Like me, you’re probably a little ego-geocentric about the importance of Earth. It’s where you were born, it’s where you keep all your stuff. It’s even where you’re going to die - I know, I know, not...
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Will We Contaminate Europa?
Europa is probably the best place in the Solar System to go searching for life. But before they’re launched, any spacecraft we send will need to be squeaky clean so don’t contaminate the place with our...
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Incredible Hand-Drawn Animations Explain How Spacecraft Work
Freelance animator and storyboard artist Stanley VonMedvey has started using his remarkable talents to create short videos to explain a pretty complex topic: how spacecraft work. He's made two so far...
View ArticleAstronomy Cast Ep. 413: Navigating Near
It’s hard enough finding your way around planet Earth, but what do you do when you’re trying to find your way around the Solar System? Today we’ll talk about how spacecraft navigate from world to...
View ArticleAstronomy Cast Ep. 414: Navigating Far
In our last episode, we talked about what it’ll take to navigate across the Solar System. In this episode we scale things up and speculate how future civilizations will navigate to other stars and even...
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Where Are All The Alien Robots?
If you’ve seen at least one other episode of the Guide to Space, you know I’m obsessed about the Fermi Paradox. This idea that the Universe is big and old, and should be teeming with life. And yet, we...
View ArticleAstronomy Cast Ep. 425: Naming Spacecraft
Have you ever noticed spacecraft missions have some pretty cool names? How does anyone decide what to call these things? Visit the Astronomy Cast Page to subscribe to the audio podcast! We usually...
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Colonizing the Outer Solar System
Okay, so this article is Colonizing the Outer Solar System, and is actually part 2 of our team up with Fraser Cain of Universe Today, who looked at colonizing the inner solar system. You might want...
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What Did Cassini Teach Us?
Ask me my favorite object in the Solar System, especially to see through a telescope, and my answer is always the same: Saturn. Saturn is this crazy, ringed world, different than any other place we’ve...
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What Are Fast Radio Bursts?
You might think you’re reading an educational website, where I explain fascinating concepts in space and astronomy, but that’s not really what’s going on here. What’s actually happening is that you’re...
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Flying Into the Sun? NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Mission
If you’ve read enough of our articles, you know I’ve got an uneasy alliance with the Sun. Sure, it provides the energy we need for all life on Earth. But, it’s a great big ongoing thermonuclear...
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Is Time To Go Back to Uranus and Neptune? Revisiting Ice Giants of the Solar...
I look forward to all the future missions that NASA is going to be sending out in the Solar System. Here, check this out. You can use NASA’s website to show you all the future missions. Here’s...
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