Colonel Chris Hadfield is one of the most famous astronauts on Earth. Through the creative use of social media, he’s made space exciting and accessible to new generations of enthusiasts, most notably through…
No longer the unreachable object, the moon became less ethereal after the ‘giant leap for mankind’.
Petri Damstén/Flickr
Sunday marks the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969, after multiple Apollo lunar missions unfolded through the 1960s in front of an awestruck global audience. But many wondered…
Can we go too far humanising machines?
Flickr/Jeremy Brooks
This weekend, the moon’s fortnightly rotation cycle turns China’s lunar rover Yutu (the Jade Rabbit) and its solar panels toward the sun once again … but whether the rover wakes up or not remains to be…
Lunar heritage sites such as Tranquility Base – shown here with Buzz Aldrin in 1969 – must be protected … but a US bill is not appropriate.
NASA/Neil A. Armstrong
With India and China planning lunar surface missions, privately-funded space entrepreneurs competing for the US$40 million Google Lunar X Prize and discussions around lunar mining intensifying, working…
NASA has built up a strong network of science enthusiasts who can step in when the agency shuts down.
NASA HQ PHOTO
Now that the US government is back in business, all “non-essential” services will resume. For 15 days we went without NASA’s full operation, US Antarctic research and federally-funded clinical studies…
Two golden records, on their way out of our solar system, carry Australian Aboriginal music – but what’s the real story behind the recording?
x-ray delta one
Earlier this year, NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 left our solar system after a 35-year journey, carrying with it a golden record containing sounds, images and music from Earth. Its sister craft, Voyager 2…
The Hobbit was thought to have lived around 18,000 years ago.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
The archaeologist who helped discover the extinct Homo species Flores Hobbit, Professor Mike Morwood, has died after a struggle with cancer. New Zealand-born Professor Morwood, who was based at the School…
It’s been decades since our last foray outside Earth’s orbit - but what’s next for humankind?
P.O. Arnäs
The United Nations’ Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is meeting in Vienna this week, and representatives of 74 countries will discuss, among other things, how to ensure space is maintained…
Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), left, Russian Flight Engineer Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), center, and NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn sit in chairs outside the Soyuz Capsule just minutes after they landed in a remote area outside the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday, May 14, 2013. Hadfield, Romanenko and Marshburn are returning from five months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 34 and 35 crews.
NASA/Carla Cioffi
Three astronauts from the International Space Station, including the singing Canadian Chris Hadfield, landed in Kazakhstan today after a journey of nearly 100 million kilometres. Commander Hadfield, an…
The spinning vortex of Saturn’s north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage, NASA said.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
The US space agency has released fresh pictures of a hurricane with a 2000km wide eye locked over Saturn’s north pole and spinning at around four times the speed of earthly hurricane winds. The pictures…
The universe is a big place, and the temptation will be to shape it in our image.
t.abroudj/Flickr
With the global population now well over seven billion people there are few remaining parts of the world relatively untouched by human activity. We assess the current state and future prospects of five…
Space missions have a long tradition of Christmas celebration.
Wikimedia Commons
Christmas - whether you’re religious or not - is a time when people gather their families together to reinforce the bonds that make us human. In the era of modern telecommunications, distance no longer…
This still image and animation shows the final flight path for NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission spacecraft, which impacted the moon on Dec. 17, 2012, around 2:28 p.m. PST. Their successful prime and extended science missions now completed, the twin GRAIL spacecraft Ebb and Flow are being sent purposefully into the moon because their low orbit and fuel state precludes further scientific operations. The animations were created from data obtained by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/ASU
NASA deliberately crashed two decommissioned space craft into the moon today in a controlled landing aimed at preserving heritage sites on the lunar surface. The twin space ships, named Ebb and Flow, were…
Voyager 1 has come across an unexpected region of the solar system - a “magnetic superhighway”.
NASA
At 18.5 billion kilometres from Earth, the Voyager 1 space probe is the most distant human-made object ever to leave our planet. And now the spacecraft, which was launched in September 1977, has discovered…
It’s not everyday you get to chat with a spacecraft that’s nearing the edge of the solar system.
NASA
Interviewing a spacecraft isn’t something one does every day. It certainly wasn’t an option back in the late 1970s, when Voyager 1 and 2 set off on a mission like no other before or since: to visit some…
The 8km-high volcano, Maat Mons, is only one of the reasons to head back to Venus.
NASA/JPL
Last week the world stopped to watch as the black disc of Venus inched its way across the face of the sun. But beyond the transits that capture our attention roughly twice per century, Venus has always…
The amateur radio satellite, Australis Oscar V, is an important part of our spacefaring history.
Alice Gorman
A few weeks ago astronauts on the International Space Station hid in escape capsules following concerns a piece of space junk was going to collide with the station. The collision didn’t eventuate but the…
Nearly 8,000 objects have been identified for possible collision with Earth.
Pat Dalton...
In the past six months, it seems something has fallen from the sky every second minute. In September, the UARS satellite re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a media frenzy. In October, the German…
