The Sky Tonight

December 09, 2012

To the moon and back for less than 2 billion dollars
Washington (AFP) Dec 6, 2012
Two former top NASA officials unveiled plans Thursday to sell manned flights to the moon by the end of the decade, in an announcement 40 years after the last human set foot there. Spaceflight, long the province of national governments, has moved toward increased commercialization in recent years, with private companies for the first time successfully launching rockets into orbit. The US space agency, in the hopes of keeping costs down, even retired its space shuttles in 2011. NASA has instead pa ... read more

Previous Issues

Dec 07

Dec 06

Dec 05

Dec 04

Dec 03

What is Creating Gullies on Vesta? In a preliminary analysis of images from NASA's Dawn mission, scientists have spotted intriguing gullies that sculpt the walls of geologically young craters on the giant asteroid Vesta. Led by ... more		Secrets of universe revealed thanks to AF research complex Looking skyward, scientists worldwide now know the universe's size, composition, approximate age and rate of expansion, thanks in part to "essential" data derived from a time-sensitive test conducte ... more		X-ray vision can reveal the moment of birth of violent supernovae A team of astronomers led by the University of Leicester has uncovered new evidence that suggests that X-ray detectors in space could be the first to witness new supernovae that signal the death of ... more
				Speeding Space Junk Poses Risks for Spacecraft The amount of space junk floating around the Earth grows every year, and increasingly can pose risks to spacecraft orbiting the planet. In the United States, NASA's Orbital Debris Program (ODP ... more		Galaxy-wide echoes from the past Many galaxies have a giant black hole at their centre that causes the gas around it to glow. However, in the case of green bean galaxies, the entire galaxy is glowing, not just the centre. These new ... more

Geminid Meteor Shower Coming on December 13-14 If it's clear late Thursday night, December 13th, 2012, keep a lookout high overhead for the shooting stars of the Geminid meteor shower. "The Geminids are usually one of the two best meteor showers ... more		The Bubble Nebula, observed with the new One Degree Imager Camera Just in time for the holidays, a spectacular image of the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) demonstrates the potential of the new camera known as the One Degree Imager, or ODI, that is being commissioned at ... more		U.N. watchdog: Iran could resume enriching uranium in months Debate rages over damage inflicted by US strikes on Iran What does NATO's 5% spending deal really mean?		Wide Binary Stars: Long-Distance Stellar Relationships Using computer simulations, scientists from Hawaii and Finland have figured out how wide binary stars-two stars that orbit each other at a distance up to a light-year-form. Our Sun is a single sta ... more
				Crowdsourcing the cosmos: Astronomers welcome all to identify star clusters in Andromeda galaxy Astronomers are inviting the public to search Hubble Space Telescope images of the Andromeda galaxy to help identify star clusters and increase understanding of how galaxies evolve. The new Andromed ... more		Heliophysics Nugget: Sungrazing Comets as Solar Probes To observe how winds move high in Earth's atmosphere, scientists sometimes release clouds of barium as tracers to track how the material corkscrews, blows around, and changes composition in response ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Solar systems for home and business

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

NASA's GRAIL Creates Most Accurate Moon Gravity Map Twin NASA probes orbiting Earth's moon have generated the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The new map, created by the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mis ... more		When the first stars blinked on As far back in time as astronomers have been able to see, the universe has had some trace of heavy elements, such as carbon and oxygen. These elements, originally churned from the explosion of massi ... more		Europe bakes in summer's first heatwave as continent warms WHO says all Covid-19 origin theories still open, after inconclusive study Winds hamper firefighters in Turkey as heat wave scorches Southern Europe		Astronomers discover and 'weigh' infant solar system Astronomers have found the youngest still-forming solar system yet seen, an infant star surrounded by a swirling disk of dust and gas more than 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus ... more
				New galaxy census highlights importance of starbursts Astronomers have used ESA's Herschel Space Observatory to identify thousands of previously undetected starburst galaxies - among the most prolific stellar factories in the Universe. Follow-up observ ... more		Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon, Icier than Scientists Thought Scientists have long suspected that a vast ocean of liquid water lies under the crusty exterior of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. New analysis suggests that the internally generated heat that keeps t ... more

Halfway Between Uranus and Neptune, New Horizons Cruises On

Dwarf planet Makemake lacks atmosphere

Keck Observations Bring Weather Of Uranus Into Sharp Focus

Can life emerge on planets around cooling stars?

Model sheds light on the chemistry that sparked the origin of life

Life on Mars: NASA says 'hold on a minute!'

Astronomers discover and 'weigh' infant solar system

Search for Life Suggests Solar Systems More Habitable than Ours

Do missing Jupiters mean massive comet belts?

NASA to send new rover to Mars in 2020

Orbiter Spies Where Rover's Cruise Stage Hit Mars

Safe Driving on Mars

	'Dark Core' May Not Be So Dark After All Astronomers were puzzled earlier this year when NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spotted an overabundance of dark matter in the heart of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520. This observation was surpr ... more		The dance of quantum tornadoes Tornado-like vortexes can be produced in bizarre fluids which are controlled by quantum mechanics, completely unlike normal liquids. New research published in the journal Nature Communications demon ... more		A bridge to the quantum world: Dirac electrons found in unique material In a discovery that helps clear a new path toward quantum computers, University of Michigan physicists have found elusive Dirac electrons in a superconducting material. Quantum computers use atoms t ... more		Quantum thermodynamics No man is an island, entire of itself, said poet John Donne. And no atom neither. Even in the middle of intergalactic space, atoms feel the electromagnetic field - also known as the cosmic microwave ... more

Drilling for water in Venezuela's parched oil town

China to keep anti-dumping steel duties on EU, UK, S. Korea and Indonesia

Trump ends trade talks with Canada over tax on US tech firms

Can life emerge on planets around cooling stars?		Chinese astronauts may grow veg on Moon		NASA's Cassini Sees Abrupt Turn in Titan's Atmosphere		Search for Life Suggests Solar Systems More Habitable than Ours		Altimeter Built at Goddard Helped Identify Ice on Mercury
New radio telescope could save world billions		A Multi-Wavelength View of Radio Galaxy Hercules A		Bismuth provides perfect dance partners for quantum computing qubits		Steps towards filming atoms dancing		Do missing Jupiters mean massive comet belts?

NASA Voyager 1 Encounters New Region in Deep Space

The Beginning of Everything: A New Paradigm Shift for the Infant Universe

Australia unveils telescope to warn of solar flares

WSU researchers use 3-D printer to make parts from moon rock

Texas Astronomers Measure Most Massive, Most Unusual Black Hole

Brown Dwarfs May Grow Rocky Planets

European research agencies create sustainable entity for astroparticle physics

Schriever squadrons assure safe passage in space domain

Voyager discovers 'magnetic highway' at edge of solar system

Astronomers report startling find on planet formation

Record-Setting X-ray Jet Discovered

Spacecraft Finds New Evidence for Water Ice on Mercury

Asteroid dust from space

Biggest Black Hole Blast Discovered

A Sky Full of Planets

Large ice deposits found on planet nearest the sun

NIST experiments challenge fundamental understanding of electromagnetism

Nine Radar Images of Asteroid 2007 PA8

Dust Grains Highlight the Path to Planet Formation

NASA Technologists Test 'Game-Changing' Data-Processing Technology

Free Newsletters - Space - Defense - Environment - Energy

Buy Advertising

Media Advertising Kit

Editorial & Other Enquiries

Privacy statement

The contents herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2013 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy statement