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
How the Ansari X Prize Altered the Trajectory of Human Spaceflight
Looking up into the bright Mojave sky in 2004, I strained to keep my eyes on the tiny spaceship 50,000 feet up. "Three, two, one... release, release, release!" came the call over the loudspeakers.
Predictions for the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics
Excitement is building — at least in science circles — for the upcoming announcements of the 2014 Nobel Prizes, along with the inevitable speculation about who might be among this year’s winners.
Asteroid Families Traced Back to the Collisions That Spawned Them
Space rocks tend to stick with their own kind