Tag: space exploration

NASA’s WISE Spacecraft surfaces most lustrous Galaxy in Universe: Space Evolution

Pooja Kashyap

NASA’s WISE has surfaced a far-flung galaxy, which is supposed to be shining intensely with infrared light with an intensity of nearly 300 trillion suns. The extremely luminous infrared galaxy (ELIRGs) is one of the most luminous galaxies to be discovered till date. Space evolution Chao-Wei Tsai at NASA’s JPL claimed that they have been witnessing an enormous stage of evolution taking place across galaxy. They are assuming that the source of the intense light could be from the growing spout of the galaxy’s black hole. According to Professor Andrew…

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Ripples and not Rings in the Disk of the Milky Way: Galaxy’s Structure

Pooja Kashyap

As per the latest astronomical research, the galactic disk is molded into many concentric ripples, which makes our Milk Way more than 50% larger than currently estimated. According to the study led by Professor Heidi Jo Newberg at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, there exists a circle of stars which is protruding towards to the outside of the Milky Way. The conclusion has been drawn by re-visiting the data that was gathered from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey three years ago.

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10 Images of ESA’s IXV Mini-Shuttle: Blasting off in February 2015

Pooja Kashyap

ESA’s mini shuttle is all set to launch its flight and reentry mission. With this development, Europe will set strong foundation for innovative technology that would help future reentry missions for astronauts as well as other spatial bodies. The test flight is scheduled to be held on February 11. The entire operation would last for about 100 minutes testing the critical systems using 300 embedded sensors. Following are some of the images of the ESA’s space taxi, as they call it. 1) IXV during integration at Thales Alenia Space 2)…

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10 Images from Space Station Element Cupola: An Astronaut’s Office within the ISS

Pooja Kashyap

Last month, we covered a round up related to view from space and now we have some images from within Cupola, the pressurized Space Station Element with seven windows. Cupola The Cupola is an observatory module of the ISS. It has seven windows that are used for performing experiments, anchoring and observing Earth. The Space Shuttle mission STS-130 was kicked off from Earth on 8 February 2010 and docked to the Tranquility (Node 3) module. Considering Cupola’s successful attachment, ISS assembly has reached 85 percent completion. The observatory module is…

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Helena device can create Oxygen on Red Planet: Global Contest for Mars One’s First Unmanned Lander

Neha Shukla

Mars One, the controversial project that plans to create a permanent human settlement on the Red Planet has organized a competition called the Mars One University Competition. The competition has invited designers to prepare technology that can supply Mars citizens with breathable air. The victorious payload will have the opportunity to travel to Mars One initial unmanned lander mission that is scheduled to land on Mars in 2018. This mission will in turn prepare the way for the future colonists planning to reach Mars in 2025. A student team from…

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10 Images Captured by Orion: A View from Space at 32,000 kmph and 4,000°F

Pooja Kashyap

Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) finally made its successful re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere after a dramatic test flight that hovered around the Earth twice in nearly 4.5 hours. The spacecraft made a fiery re-entry with 32,000 km/h enduring temperature of 4,000°F. This happens to be one of the fastest NASA capsule missions after the Apollo program from 1969 to 1972.

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Impression of Human Brain discovered on Mars: Athabasca Region of the Red Planet

Pooja Kashyap

Recent image received by NASA clarifies the fact that once the Martian surface was saturated by volcanoes. The image has a semblance of a human brain (pictured above) and it stretches over a distance of approximately 1.2 miles. The agency has called it the ‘circular island’ since it appears to be an island encircled by smoothly flowing magma.

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Mangalyaan beams back Images from Mars: India’s First Successful Mission to the Red Planet

Pooja Kashyap

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission after positioning itself successfully into the orbit, took some images of the red planet. The image reflected the planet’s crater-marked surface. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) circulated the images across its network via its facebook page. Pictures containing orange surface with dark holes were taken at a height of nearly 4,536 miles. ISRO’s lead researcher V. Koteswara Rao confirmed that the spacecraft is working absolutely fine and that it has been able to click couple of pictures of the surface and its surroundings. Soon enough,…

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Interplay between Subsurface Liquid and Clathrates Reservoirs on Titan: Methane Rainfall

Pooja Kashyap

Information gathered by NASA in collaboration with European Space Agency Cassini mission has surfaced presence of numerous lakes across the northern polar area of Titan. Instead of consisting of water, these seas are composed of hydrocarbons, the organic compounds that are also present on Earth. As per the previous studies, the rainfall from the surface clouds brings about major amount of liquid on Saturn’s moon. However, the cycle of liquid moving through the moon’s crust and the atmosphere is still under consideration.

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Hellacious Lava Fountains on Jupiter’s Moon Io: Curtains of Fire

Pooja Kashyap

Within a two-week period Io, Jupiter’s moon, experienced two massive outbursts in August 2013. Astronomers speculated that these volcanic eruptions could be regular phenomenon that can spew materials in huge quantities above the surface. If we talk about ratio, it could be somewhere from one huge outburst per one or two years but Io suggested more than this. Io is the innermost moon out of the planet’s four large Galilean moons. It is more than 3,600 km across. It is the only space body that is known so far, by…

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Japan to create Space Force to Monitor Debris: The Fourth Battlefield

Pooja Kashyap

Space debris are affecting our vital services and if it continuous to do so then time is not far when we would no longer be able to communicate, the financial markets would be paralyzed, no TV, no internet, no phone calls, no satellites, life would come to a halt, literally! Satellite collisions would initiate the catastrophic snow balling effect amplifying the cascade of destruction. The movie Gravity did call for some serious thinking about the impacts that debris can cause. Although the movie had some serious flaws but that is…

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Black Holes morph into White Holes: Space-Time Loops cause Big Bounce

Pooja Kashyap

As per a recent theory, supernova explosions could be the dying throes of black holes that were formed soon after the Big Bang. The phenomenon called black holes have been the most flabbergasting observable fact of the universe and until now, there has been no concrete evidence as to what is on its other side and what happens to the matter that it engulfs. However, two physicists have gone ahead and postulated that these black holes have an expiry date too and that they morph into ‘white holes’ explosively dispersing…

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Habitability is Dependent on Ocean: Water bodies Influence Climate Stability

Neha Shukla

There is a lot of research work going to find traces of life on other planets and to find elements that are essential requisites for sustaining life on other Earth-like planets. All the research done so far using computer simulations were more focused on the atmosphere of these alien planets with Earth-like habitable climates. 

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