Return of the space dogs
Laika, the first space dog, died in orbit. But the next two – Belka and Strelka – survived. One of Strelka’s puppies was gifted to John F. Kennedy… but not before it was fully scanned for secret listening devices.
Category: Astronomy
February 30th
The calendar date February 30th has happened just once in history: in Sweden in 1712.
Extreme geocaching
Geocaching is a recreational treasure hunt, with containers hidden worldwide just waiting to be found. And I do mean worldwide: they can be found at the very bottom of the world, the very top of the world, and even out of this world entirely.
Space weather
When the solar wind hits the Earth, it can set off space storms, space hurricanes, and even space tornadoes.
Viking sunstone
The Vikings navigated by the position of the sun. But what did they do when it was cloudy?
Sun storm
In 1859 a geomagnetic storm from the Sun knocked out telegraph equipment in Europe and North America and sent auroras almost as far as the equator; it was the largest such event in recorded history.
Sludge of the universe
Many moons, dwarf planets, comets, and trans-Neptunian objects are covered in a kind of complex chemical sludge sometimes called “tholins.” And this sludge may be much more common throughout the universe.
Cosmic sound
According to our understanding of the Big Bang, “cosmic sound” is older than neutral hydrogen. We can still spot its echoes today.
Space probe software bug
NASA lost contact with the space probe Deep Impact in 2013 because of a single software bug.
Cosmic ladder (Part 2)
To measure distances in deep space, you need to look for candles in the darkness. [2 of 2]
Cosmic ladder (Part 1)
It’s a lot more difficult to measure distances in space than you might think. [1 of 2]
Space junk
A bit of the Apollo 12 rocket from 1969 is still floating around out in space. It orbits the sun – but every thirty or forty years it comes back to orbit the Earth for a while.
The Daylight Comet
Everyone eagerly anticipated Halley’s comet showing up in April 1910. It came as quite a surprise, then, when another brighter comet appeared just four months before: the Daylight Comet.
First light
After the Big Bang the universe was dark for hundreds of million years, until the formation of the earliest stars and galaxies. And one of those galaxies was GN-z11, the oldest we have ever observed.
The mother of meteorites
When something hit Vesta, an enormous hunk of rock in the asteroid belt, it created one of the largest impact craters known, the highest mountain in the Solar System, and many of Earth’s meteorites.
Arecibo reply
In 1974 the Arecibo message was broadcast into space. In 2001 hoaxers made a reply “from aliens” in a field next to another observatory.