
NASA's Plan to Visit an Asteroid Faces a Rocky Start
America's keystone human spaceflight mission for the next decade may be over before it begins

NASA's Plan to Visit an Asteroid Faces a Rocky Start
America's keystone human spaceflight mission for the next decade may be over before it begins

Physics Week in Review: November 8, 2014
It was a big week for physics in the movies, with the premiere of Interstellar, and the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything. That translates into lots of pixels commenting on the science behind the films.


The Surreal Task of Landing on a Comet
On November 12th 2014 the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission will eject the small robotic lander Philae on a trajectory that should take it down to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (or 67P/C-P for short).

Crash Analysis: How SpaceShipTwo's Feathered Tails Work
The cause of the deadly crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo on Friday remains unknown, but the commercial spaceplane's feathered reentry system looks to have been involved.

First View of Mars Was a Paint-by-Numbers
We've come a long way since NASA's Mariner 4

Physics Week in Review: November 1, 2014
Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween festivities. Here’s a few other related links: The ghostly glow of St. Elmo’s fire: it works the same way that a neon light glows. The Levitating Halloween Pumpkin with a superconductor inside. Bonus: More Conceptual Physics Halloween Costumes.This year, go out as The Holographic Principle!

Failure to Launch Is Always An Option
Do not try this at home. A Russian Proton-M launch goes wrong – and it can happen to anyone (wait for the shock wave). A rocket is a controlled bomb.

Recent Lunar Discoveries Reveal a "New Moon"
Think you know about the Moon? I did, but then I started reading ‘The New Moon: Water, Exploration, and Future Habitation‘ (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and realized that my knowledge amounted to a teensy scrap of lunar dust.

The Best Seat in the House for Sunday’s Comet Flyby Is Mars
Scientists and satellites gear up for a comet’s spectacular chance encounter with Mars

The Best Seat in the House for Sunday’s Comet Flyby Is Mars
Scientists and satellites gear up for a comet’s spectacular chance encounter with Mars

Mars Losing Parts of Itself
NASA's MAVEN mission detects a hydrogen cloud blowing off the Red Planet

Red Planet Spacecraft Prepare for Rare Comet Encounter
NASA's rovers and orbiters at Mars will witness a close encounter with a comet on October 19, an event that happens once every million years