Comet Pan-STARRS has been brightening steadily for the past few months. By now Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011 L4) became a naked-eye object while it makes its closest approach to the Sun, inside the orbit of Mercury. It is now closer to the Sun than Venus. At
The Chelyabinsk meteor exploded in the atmosphere over Russia at approximately 9:20 am local time on February 15, 2013. The meteor flew out of the blue, literally from the direction of the Sun where no telescope could see it, and took everyone by surprise. The blast…
The international Cassini spacecraft took amazing images of Venus shining through Saturn’s rings. Venus and Saturn are about 1,321,200,000 km (820,955,619 miles or 8.83 astronomical units) apart on average. Venus is brighter in Saturn’s skies than Earth is,
A newly found asteroid, named 2013 EC will pass just inside the orbit of the Moon on March 4, 2013 at 07:35 UTC. Asteroid 2013 EC is big about 8-17 meters , just about the size of the space rock that exploded over Russia on February 15, 2013. It was
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has eclipse seasons twice a year near each equinox. Earth passes directly between the Sun and produces a series of eclipses from the point of view of the spacecraft.The first eclipse of the SDO Spring 2013 Eclipse Season
2013 was supposed to be the year of Solar Max, the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle yet now that it has arrived solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers are well below their values in 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent for many months. There
NASA’s Van Allen Probes mission has discovered a previously unknown third radiation belt around Earth, revealing the existence of unexpected structures and processes within these hazardous regions of space.Previous observations of Earth’s Van Allen belts have long
The first of this year’s two potential bright comets is visible for those who can see low on the western horizon and find out which spacecraft is on a 10-year mission to catch up with another comet.Credit: JPL
ESA’s Flight Dynamics team uses cutting-edge computational techniques to plan, determine and control complex spacecraft trajectories. They apply fundamental physics and mathematics to 21st century spacecraft orbiting Earth and voyaging deep into our Solar System.The
Adding another milestone to its achievements, Curiosity has successfully drilled a Martian rock, thereby obtaining sample from its interior. Curiosity is the first rover ever to perform such drilling on a rock beyond Earth, NASA reported on February 20, 2013. Powdered
