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Curiosity, from a 1935 perspective
Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/12/03 01:49 CST
With a new rover, Curiosity, on its way to Mars, Jason Davis takes a look at what we knew - or thought we knew - about the planet back in 1935.
365 Days of Astronomy Celebrates Sagan's Birthday
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2011/11/10 02:09 CST
The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast celebrated Carl Sagan's birthday yesterday by reposting my conversation with Ann Druyan, Sagan's Co-creator and life-partner. Links inside.
The fish that sent us to the moon
Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/10/20 06:16 CDT
The tale of NASA's Super Guppy aircraft, which ferried parts of America's space program to their launch pads.
Historical PDF: "The Voyager Flights to Jupiter and Saturn"
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/04/20 05:03 CDT
A while ago I posted all 99 issues of the Voyager Mission Status Bulletins in PDF format, and now I have another cool item to add to that collection: NASA EP-191, "The Voyager Flights to Jupiter and Saturn."
Happy 50th birthday of human spaceflight
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/04/12 12:12 CDT
On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to see firsthand the blackness of space above our home planet's thin atmosphere. Since there's lots of thoughtful reporting and commentary being posted on this anniversary, I thought it'd be more useful to link to some particularly interesting posts than to add in my comments.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/28 09:21 CST
In the past week there have been 25th anniversaries of two events in 1986, one great, one terrible: the closest approach of Voyager 2 to Uranus on January 24, and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger upon liftoff on January 28.
Space Shuttle: Not Designed by Hollywood
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2010/11/02 01:42 CDT
A brief musing on the public opinion of the shuttle when it was first unveiled, and now, as it's about to be retired.
Jupiter's faded belt: It's happened before, and it'll happen again
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/06/16 05:07 CDT
When I wrote a post about Jupiter's missing South Equatorial Belt in May, I had three main questions: how long did it take for the belt to go away, has this happened before, and how can a planet as big as Jupiter change its appearance so quickly?
Climb Aboard Apollo 11 Time Machine
Posted by Susan Lendroth on 2009/07/16 01:01 CDT
Grab your bell bottoms and Tang, and travel back to 1969 when Apollo 11's journey to the Moon captivated the world, and Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's boot prints in the lunar dust transformed us into a multi-world species.
Posted by 5thstar on 2009/06/23 07:48 CDT
In 1995, 572 astronaut applicants were narrowed down to 125 based on their resumes and English scores, then down to 48 based on paper exams and brief medical checks. These 48 candidates went through a week of comprehensive medical checks and job interviews.
Posted by Timothy Reed on 2009/06/18 12:05 CDT
The editors of the site, Nature, have begun their ApolloPlus40 blog.
Posted by David Seal on 2009/06/02 01:58 CDT
David Seal muses on his time as the mission planner for Cassini, and the history behind its name, and astronomy in Rome.
Celebrate Apollo 11's 40th Anniversary with the Crew
Posted by Susan Lendroth on 2009/05/22 01:08 CDT
This summer, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. will commemorate that extraordinary moment in history with a very special Apollo 11 celebration, featuring the mission's original crew members along with former Johnson Space Center Director Chris Kraft.
An Auspicious Week for Astronomy
Posted by Mark Adler on 2009/05/11 11:54 CDT | 1 comments
On Monday, if all goes well, we will launch the Space Shuttle to rejuvenate one the greatest scientific missions launched on or off the Earth: the Hubble Space Telescope.
Pluto: The Discovery of a Planet
Posted by Amir Alexander on 2005/02/18 11:00 CST
To mark the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the planet Pluto, The Planetary Society presents to its readers the remarkable story of the discovery.
The Discovery of a Planet, Part 6: From Pluto to Sedna
Posted by Amir Alexander on 2005/02/17 11:00 CST
74 years after Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto as a faint dot on a pair of photographic plates, a modern group of astronomers made another remarkable discovery. On March 15, 2004, Michael Brown of Caltech, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, and David Rabinowitz of Yale announced the discovery of Sedna – the furthest object ever detected in the Solar System.
The Discovery of a Planet, Part 5: The Aftermath
Posted by Amir Alexander on 2005/02/16 11:00 CST
The discovery of Planet X was announced to the world on March 13, 1930, which marked the anniversary of William Herschel’s discovery of Uranus in 1781 as well as Percival Lowell’s birthday. The observatory’s communiqué emphasized that the discovery was no coincidence, but the vindication of Lowell’s predictions made years before.
The Discovery of a Planet, Part 4: Clyde's Search
Posted by Amir Alexander on 2005/02/15 11:00 CST
Since his teenage years Clyde Tombaugh had been an avid amateur astronomer and a gifted telescope builder. Based on instructions contained in an article from a boy’s Sunday school paper, he built a series of telescopes of increasing power and quality on the family farm.
The Discovery of a Planet, Part 3: Planet X
Posted by Amir Alexander on 2005/02/14 11:00 CST
The discovery of Neptune accounted for nearly all the unexplained motions of the outer planets of the Solar System. Nevertheless, several astronomers insisted that some unexplained residual motions remained, pointing to the presence of a ninth planet beyond the orbit of Neptune.
The Discovery of a Planet, Part 2: Out of the Six-Planet World
Posted by Amir Alexander on 2005/02/13 11:00 CST
Since humans first set their eyes to the stars, they noticed that a few of these bright objects behaved differently from the others. Whereas all the stars moved together, revolving around the Earth once every 24 hours, five appeared to move within the firmament among the other stars. Accordingly, they were named “planets,” meaning “wanderers” in Greek.
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