space

Via Space News:

Newman is best known for research on form-fitting spacesuits that use mechanical counterpressure to provide greater freedom of motion for astronauts than conventional suits. "Ultimately, the big advantage is mobility, and a very lightweight suit for planetary exploration," Newman said in a Sept. 18 press release from MIT about her group's research.

She has also been involved in science and technology policy. She has a master's degree in technology and policy from MIT and since 2003 has served as director of its Technology and Policy Program.

On Sep. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 space craft was launched into our solar system.

In this image taken on Nov. 7, 2012, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst (partially obscured), both Expedition 40/41 flight engineers, attired in training versions of their Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits, are submerged in the waters of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) near NASA's Johnson Space Center. Divers (out of frame) are in the water to assist Wiseman and Gerst in their rehearsal, which is intended to help prepare them for work on the exterior of the International Space Station.

It took nine years and 3 billion miles, but at 7:49 a.m. EST the New Horizons spacecraft passed what was once the furthest planet in our solar system.

Traveling at a speed of 30,800 miles per hour, New Horizons zoomed by Pluto a scant 7,800 miles away. This is the closest we have ever got to Pluto and it will send back some of the best images of the maligned dwarf planet we have ever seen. Maybe this will convince those scientists to let it back into the club and give us the nine planets that we deserve.

But we've learned a lot so far. For instance, now we know how big the dang thing is.

This morning, NASA announced that Pluto is 2,370km (about 1,473 miles) in diameter, give or take 20m. That makes it ever so slightly bigger than Eris, a much darker and denser object that lives farther out in the Kuiper Belt. (Eris measures 2,336km in diameter.) Measurements of Pluto's size before today were estimates at best, their accuracy skewed by the dwarf planet's hazy atmosphere.

We've also learned that Pluto has a pretty big ice cap, filled with lots of nitrogen and frozen methane. (I could've told you the place was cold nine years ago.)

Since this mission happened billions of miles away and it takes four hours for the radio waves New Horizon sends us to be uploaded, we shouldn't expect to see any pictures filled with happy, waving aliens until tonight.

Also, by the way, the download speed on that information is 1 Kb/s. Dialup hell.

Here's a video explaining the delicacy and scale of this Pluto flyby:

As we got closer to the dwarf planet, however, all anyone could see was the image of Mickey Mouse's dog, carefully hidden within the terrain.

#Pluto in Pluto (Last pic from before @NASA #flyby) http://t.co/k10eyMg05V @NASANewHorizons pic.twitter.com/seidGQzxyX

— Boing Boing (@BoingBoing) July 14, 2015

The dancing light of the auroras on Saturn behaves differently from how scientists had thought possible. By choreographing the instruments aboard the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini spacecraft, while it was enroute to Saturn, to look at Saturn's southern polar region, scientists found in 2005 that the planet's auroras, long thought of as a cross between those of Earth and Jupiter, are fundamentally unlike those observed on either of the other two planets.

Jupiter's moon Ganymede is seen in transit over the great red spot. It does look like it is staring at us.

The opportunity to see a big space rock slam into our planet will likely prove too alluring for some brave and reckless souls to resist.

Whenever a massive asteroid lines a city up in its crosshairs — and it's just a matter of time before this happens if humanity doesn't take some defensive measures, experts stress — a few rubberneckers are bound to ignore evacuation orders and head toward the impact site to get an eyeful of a once-in-a-lifetime event.

What's happened in Hebes Chasma on Mars? Hebes Chasma is a depression just north of the enormous Valles Marineris canyon. Since the depression is unconnected to other surface features, it is unclear where the internal material went. Inside Hebes Chasma is Hebes Mensa, a 5 kilometer high mesa that appears to have undergone an unusual partial collapse -- a collapse that might be providing clues.