On April 12, 1961, the Soviets launched a 27-year-old fighter pilot named Yuri Gagarin on the world's first piloted space mission. picked by suebe 1 year ago

A Japanese astronaut plans to throw a boomerang inside a space station to test whether it can fly in zero gravity. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

NASA discovered that space shuttle Atlantis has been holed by a tiny piece of space debris. The 1/10-inch hole represents the second largest debris damage event ever identified. Fortunately, it missed everything that was important to the mission. Space debris is an increasingly challenging problem. picked by Fanatic 2 years ago

Catching a free ride to Mars takes more than sticking out a thumb, but some hardy Earth bacteria could survive as hitchhikers clinging to the outside of spacecraft, studies have shown. Now a set of experiments going up with space shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station will test how exposure to the harshness of space might change bacteria during a simulated Mars mission. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

Astronomers from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research have discovered a new cluster of galaxies, hidden behind a previously identified cluster of galaxies. The recently exposed cosmic giant is apparently just as bright as the first group, but is six times further away. The astronomers made the discovery as part of an international team using the space telescope XMM-Newton. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

Oct 4th will be Sputnik's 50th anniversary. Although it had its scary connotations, the dawn of the Space Age was also a hopeful event. Visionaries celebrated humanity’s long-awaited climb out of its cradle, and pragmatists soon savored the benefits of communications and weather satellites. The evolution of the space program continues to be dramatic. In a decade or so, it will be hard... read full post picked by 2manyusernames 1 year ago

The idea behind a space elevator is simple. Deploy a cable stretching from the ground near Earth’s equator far enough into space, and centrifugal forces due to Earth’s spin will keep the cable taut.

*fixed picked by jLoSsDh 4 months ago

A Japanese brewery is planning to produce the world's first "space beer" using barley once stored at the International Space Station. picked by AutumnLotus 4 months ago

Geomorphology from Space is an out of print 1986 NASA publication edited by Nicholas M. Short, Sr. and Robert W. Blair, Jr. designed for use by the remote sensing science and educational communities to study landforms and landscapes. It has a gallery of space images consisting of 237 plates, each showing a different geographic region where a particular landform theme is exemplified. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

A moth-like structure with a 22-billion-mile wingspan is hovering out in space. This giant is actually a massive cloud of dust surrounding a nearby, young star imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope that has shown astronomers that these dust disks can take on unexpectedly unusual shapes. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

The US has adopted a tough new policy aimed at protecting its interests in space and denying "adversaries" access there for hostile purposes. picked by robfouryqr 2 years ago

Takao Doi, the Japanese astronaut who'll be testing whether a boomerang will fly in space , now has something else to live down: he'll be the living test-bed for a new underwear fabric said to provide "high levels of deodorant, antiseptic and antistatic effect" in space. picked by Mitzuzake 7 months ago

An unusual electrical disturbance has been spotted in space, travelling unchanged through the ionised gas surrounding Earth. A European space mission called Cluster detected a "soliton" wave, a phenomenon similar to the self-contained solitons that can travel along optical fibres and channels of water on Earth. This is the first known soliton in space. picked by AutumnLotus 7 months ago

Orbiting more than 200 miles above the Earth, the crew of the International Space Station has sent home a special Thanksgiving message that is now airing on NASA Television and the agency's Web site. picked by Lilo 11 months ago

Remember the astronaut who recently tested whether boomerangs return to their throwers in the absence of gravity? Well, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has released video of astronaut Takao Doi showing that the objects do, in fact, come back - even in the microgravity environment of the space station. picked by AutumnLotus 5 months ago

The crew of the International space station finishes preparations for “Vsplesk” (“Burst”) experiment, results of which are expected to help in developing methods for real-time forecasting of earthquakes. picked by Bornbad 4 weeks ago

A weirdly wonderful sight appeared to astronauts aboard the International Space Station this summer — thin blue clouds hovering at the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and the void. picked by AutumnLotus 1 month ago

Astronaut Suni Williams qualified for the Boston Marathon before learning she would be at the international space station on race day. She has been cleared for a 26.2-mile simulated run at 10 a.m. EDT on Monday - just when the real event will be leaving Hopkinton down on Earth. picked by BrownTrout 1 year ago

A blog post suggests that Hubble could be kept in a high-orbit 'museum' rather than being made to crash into the Earth's atmosphere. picked by sparky 2 years ago

Weddings in space could be right around the corner, and experts figure the inevitable cosmic consummation will be just around the next corner. The Japanese firm First Advantage and the U.S.-based private spaceflight firm Rocketplane Global, Inc., announced last week they will host weddings in space for about $2.3 million (240 million yen) apiece. For all we know, sex in space has already taken p... read full post picked by Jetka 3 months ago