Space

Science

Astronauts Ready For Marathon Spacewalks

6:46pm December 21, 2013

by Geoff Brumfiel

NASA astronauts will be heading out to conduct critical repairs on the International Space Station early Saturday morning. The 6 1/2-hour spacewalk, the first in a series, will replace a faulty piece of cooling equipment.

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The average temperature in winter is about -72 degrees Faharenheit. The IceCube Lab is illuminated in the moonlight.

Science

'Ghost Particles' In Antarctica Offer Glimpse Of Deep Space

6:54pm November 21, 2013

by Geoff Brumfiel

By putting light sensors inside a giant ice cube that's a mile beneath the South Pole, scientists detected 28 neutrinos from beyond the solar system. It's just a start – but researchers hope the work could eventually yield a way to see through debris clouds to the core of exploding stars.

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Olympic Torch On Its Way To International Space Station

7:00am November 07, 2013

The Olympic torch was launched into space on Wednesday night. It will accompany astronauts on a spacewalk before returning to Earth on Nov. 10.

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Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping aboard the Tiangong-1 space module in June. China is leading what some see as a space race among Asian countries: It has worked on a lunar rover, a space station and an unmanned mission to Mars.

World News

China Sets Ambitious Agenda In 'Asian Space Race'

8:57pm November 05, 2013

by Anthony Kuhn

India launched its Mars mission on Tuesday. But China is still leading what some see as a space competition among Asian countries. It has worked on a lunar rover, a space station as well as its own unmanned mission to Mars.

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Study Says 40 Billion Planets In Our Galaxy Could Support Life

6:19pm November 05, 2013

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that roughly 1 in 5 stars, like our own sun, have an Earth-like planet orbiting around it. That's about 40 billion planets that could support life in the Milky Way galaxy. Melissa Block talks to co-author Geoff Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California-Berkeley, about the latest numbers.

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This is an artist's illustration of Kepler-62f, a planet in the "habitable zone" of a star that is slightly smaller and cooler than ours. Kepler-62f is roughly 40 percent larger than Earth.

Science

Galaxy Quest: Just How Many Earth-Like Planets Are Out There?

11:36am November 05, 2013

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

About 22 percent of sun-like stars in our galaxy may have planets orbiting them that are about the size of Earth and bathed in similar amounts of sunlight, according to a new analysis of data from the Kepler Space Telescope.

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Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has spent a total of six months in space. In his new book, he writes that getting to space took only "8 minutes and 42 seconds. Give or take a few thousand days of training."

Books
Arts

Astronaut Chris Hadfield Brings Lessons From Space Down To Earth

2:30pm October 31, 2013

The former International Space Station commander achieved Internet stardom with his in-space rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity." After three missions and a total of six months in space he shares what he's learned in a new book, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth.

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Science

How To See Forever On Your Dirty Car

12:15pm October 29, 2013

by Adam Frank

When you fall in love with science, ordinary, everyday stuff can suddenly seem extraordinary. That's how NPR Blogger and astrophysicist Adam Frank sees it — today he sees it in dust.

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This artist's illustration shows the Voyager 1 space probe. The spacecraft was launched on Sept. 5, 1977, and as of August 2012, it is outside the bubble of hot gas, known as the "heliopause," that radiates from the sun.

Science

See Ya, Voyager: Probe Has Finally Entered Interstellar Space

9:34pm September 12, 2013

by Richard Harris

"This is the real deal. Voyager 1 has finally reached interstellar space; the first time a spacecraft has been in the space between the stars," says one project scientist. Launched in 1977, the probe has been surveying the solar system.

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This image highlights the outer atmosphere of the sun, called the corona, as well as hot flare plasma. Hot active regions, solar flares and coronal mass ejections appear bright here. The dark areas, called coronal holes, are places where very little radia

Science

Coronal Holes: The (Rarely Round) Gaps In The Sun's Atmosphere

5:21pm September 10, 2013

by Joe Palca

Scientists aren't sure exactly why holes form in the hot and glowing outermost layer of gas surrounding the sun. But one theory is that the dark blotches we see on images of the sun could be the remnants of the (relatively) cool splotches called sunspots.

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