Europa is a fascinating place. Once it was believed that Jupiter’s moons were just lumps of ice and rock. But missions to Jupiter showed us that there is more to Jupiter’s moons than we thought. This moon has become much more interesting the more it is explored. The furthest we have got nowadays is to [...]
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Where Should We Look for Alien Artefacts?
There is a problem with our approach at the moment when looking for alien civilisations. SETI looks for signals that are sent by the electromagnetic spectrum and their are a lot of frequencies to search. If you pair this with the size of the universe you can see how SETI is really looking for a [...]
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Good Evidence for Life on Saturn’s Moon Titan
The Cassini spacecraft has noticed on Titan, Saturn’s moon, that hydrogen molecules flow down through the atmosphere and disappear when they reach the surface (Icarus Journal). Also the hydrocarbons on the surface of Titan have been mapped and show that there is a lack of acetylne (Journal of geophysical research). The lack of acetylne could [...]
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Japanese Corporation Aims to Build a Solar Ring on the Moon
The world’s energy needs are coming to a crisis point but technology could solve this in a Japanese plan to put solar cells around the moon’s equator. That’s 11,000 km of solar cells twinkling on the moon. The electricity from the solar cells would be converted to microwaves and lasers would beam the power to [...]
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A Robotic Japanese Lunar Base Is Planned for 2020
Japan (a government panel of Waseda University) has recently announced that it is going to send robots to the moon to create a moon base. This obviously has come after America announces that it is not going to bother with the moon just yet and I expect that Japan will take full advantage of the [...]
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Evidence Builds up for Life in Europa’s Ocean
Europa is one of my favourite moons around Jupiter as it keeps throwing up little titbits of what could be underneath that icy surface. Underneath the thin layer of ice that encompasses Europa there is speculated to be a 100 km deep ocean. This would be ice if it wasn’t for the tidal forces of [...]
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Sign up to Walk on the Moon.
Ever fancied walking on the moon? A new site called Moon zoo can almost get you there (well in mind if not body). The lunar reconnaissance orbiter has taken many photos of the moon and this site presents them in such a way that it is easy to look around and take in the panorama. [...]
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The Orion Capsule Takes One Extremely Small Baby Step
“One giant leap for mankind” doesn’t really come to mind after watching the Orion capsule launch. The Orion capsule is the leftover from the mission to the moon that Obama cancelled. Recently they tried out the escape mechanism from the Orion capsule which was to protect the astronauts just in case of fire or other [...]
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Take a trip to Titan with Cassini Huygens
The solar system may seem a barren place when it comes to life or anything similar. Obviously we are here on our lovely planet so that statement is not true. The other planets don’t seem likely to harbour life except perhaps Mars, but the life there if there is any, is not obvious as we [...]
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Best of the Week Podcast- A Man, A Planet and Loads of Controversy
ENCORE While the Kepler spacecraft hunts for habitable planets beyond the solar system, we’ve let one of our own planets slip away! Find out why Pluto’s demotion to dwarf status created a public uproar as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson reads us his hate mail. From third-graders! Also, how we might find Earth-like planets… the possibility [...]
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All About Moonbases
A moon base sounds like an exotic idea but is well within our reach. There were people around, I expect when the idea of a space station around the earth was thought of, years ago, that were extremely sceptical. The international space station now exists orbiting the Earth and has got bigger and bigger by [...]
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Solar Power Beamed To Earth From Space?
There are many renewable, green sources of energy one of them being solar power. This can be taken 1 step further by having the solar panels put into space. Obviously that requires a little more, OK a lot more effort than the words imply but would be worth it. There are benefits to outsourcing solar [...]
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Best Of The Week- The NASA Constellation Program Podcast
All about the constellation space programme. If you read my blog post recently then you will know quite a lot but it is always good to know more! By Astronomy cast // Join the forum discussion on this post – (1) Posts
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Our Best Hope For Seeing A Man On The Moon & Some Alternatives
What’s the next step in manned spaceflight? Is America the only country planning to go to the moon? The questions go on and on and everything looks rosy if you look at the hype even if it is all planned for the next 20 years onwards which seems like countries are dragging their feet. NASA [...]
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Throwing Things At The Moon
The Moon is great isn’t it? It features in the best album ever (The Dark Side of the Moon) and is like an old friend flying round the Earth. Other planets may have more Moons and more colourful Moons but our moon is ours. If you feel that the Moon needs a hug and protection [...]
