ESA’s Mars Express provides video of the week!

By Catherine, on June 22nd, 2011%

On June 1st of this year, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft was able to capture images of an unusual alignment as Mars’ moon Phobos passed in front of Jupiter (seen in background). The images were put together to form this amazing animation.

Mars has two moons – Phobos and Deimos. The origins of these names are a bit gloomy : Phobos, named after a Greek God, means “fear” and Deimos is a figure representing “dread” in Greek mythology. Phobos is the largest of the two, and the closest moon to Mars.

You can see quite . . .

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A Blast from the Past

By Catherine, on June 10th, 2011%

Late last month, space and astronomy blogs and news sources were abuzz over the discovery of what may be the most distant event ever detected in the Universe.

The event was something referred to as a Gamma Ray Burst officially designated as GRB 090429B, and it was detected by the ‘Burst Alert Telescope’ which is part of NASA’s ‘Swift’ space satellite. The satellite, launched in 2004, orbits at an altitude of 600 km above the Earth.  Here, I take a closer look at what a “gamma ray burst” really is and why this observation is interesting.

A whole . . .

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How to Catch a Comet

By Catherine, on November 5th, 2010%

There is plenty of excitement for NASA this week with both manned and unmanned missions sharing the limelight.  Avid shuttle watchers are eagerly awaiting this week’s scheduled launch of Space Shuttle Discovery’s final mission to the International Space Station now scheduled for Nov.5th at the earliest.

Nov. 4th held a real treat: NASA’s  EPOXI mission made a very successful close encounter with a comet known as Hartley 2.  In fact this encounter is the closest a  man-made object has ever come to any comet – coming within 435 miles/700 km.  This is only the fifth time a spacecraft has . . .

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What’s NASA crashing into next?

By Catherine, on September 13th, 2010%

Last year the infamous NASA LCROSS mission gained attention as the unmanned space probe was set on a collision course with the lunar surface.  On October 9 2009, viewers watched as footage of the crash event was streamed back to Earth.  The mission crashed a rocket into the moon’s southern pole while the LCROSS craft with all the sensors and recording equipment followed behind, analyzing the cloud of material kicked up by the impact, looking for water.  And water was found: on November 13 2009, scientists confirmed the presence of water in data collected from the mission.

It . . .

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