Tag Archives: nasa

TESS Lifts Off

Posted on April 19, 2018 by

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) lifted off on a SpaceX rocket last night. TESS is a follow-up to the wildly successful Kepler mission that will hunt for transiting planets—that is, planets that pass in front of their stars, blocking … Continue reading →

Posted in Current events, Planets, Space exploration | Tagged , , ,

LIGO Discovers Colliding Neutron Stars and Cosmic Gold

Posted on October 16, 2017 by

(Virgo doesn’t, but that’s still a good thing.) The two LIGO observatories and Virgo are the world’s three operational gravitational wave observatories. These observatories use incredibly precise lasers to detect the ripples in spacetime caused by colliding massive objects like … Continue reading →

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The End of the Cassini Mission

Posted on September 16, 2017 by

Yesterday morning, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft at Saturn was deorbited into the planet’s atmosphere in the Grand Finale of an epic 20-year mission. Cassini observed Venus, Earth, and Jupiter while it was in transit and has spent the past 13 years … Continue reading →

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NASA Discovers the First “Earth-Like” Planet for the Third Time

Posted on July 25, 2015 by

There’s been buzz in the news about the latest planet discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, Kepler-452b. It’s being hailed as a major discovery. It’s the first ever Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone of a…boy, this sounds familiar, … Continue reading →

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NASA finds an ice-cold planet right next door

Posted on April 27, 2014 by

You may have heard about the recent discovery of an ice cold “brown dwarf” or “star” right next door in our Solar Neighborhood. The object, which goes by the telephone number* WISE J085510.83-071442.5, is only 7.2 light-years from our Solar … Continue reading →

Posted in Current events, Planets | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Planets abound!

Posted on February 26, 2014 by

It’s always fun when a government agency uses the word “bonanza” in a press release. NASA’s Kepler space telescope spent mission spent three and a half years observing distant stars in our galaxy looking for planets crossing in front of … Continue reading →

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Watch Comet ISON skim the Sun tomorrow

Posted on November 27, 2013 by

On Thanksgiving Day, the much-anticipated perihelion passage of Comet ISON will occur, and astronomers around the world will be watching. NASA is turning its fleet of Sun-observing spacecraft to watch as ISON plunges toward a fiery date with death or … Continue reading →

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