27.02.11

As ISS cooling system fails, NASA worries about post-shuttle spare part shortage

Proving that no matter how expensive your air conditioner the cooling pump will still break, NASA is planning a pair of emergency spacewalks on the $100 billion International
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As debris threatens ISS, NASA releases top-ten list of space junk culprits

NASA has been tracking a piece of space junk on course for a near collision with the International Space Station this week, but while the agency continues to monitor the debris --
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Last shuttle mission will test 3D video docking system for shuttle's replacement

In this modern economy, apparently nothing is sacred -- not even the space shuttle is spared the indignity of training its younger replacement. During what is planned to be the last shuttle flight ever, astronauts onboard space shuttle Endeavour next February will test a new docking system
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Kepler sightings of new 'Earth-like' exoplanets are not confirmed

Yesterday, everyone got excited (PopSci included) at the idea, drawn from Kepler scientist Dimitar Sasselov's TED talk, that the Kepler planet-hunting
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Ageing Odyssey orbiter creates most detailed map of Martian surface

Youth and vigor have their advantages, but there is something to be said for longevity. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has been circling the red planet since 2001 and has just released the best
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Video: Curiosity rover tries out its new wheels for the first time

It may not look like much, but NASA's next candidate to touch down on Mars has taken its first steps toward its larger ambition of exploring the Martian landscape in 2012. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory had a big week last week, mounting the Remote Sensing Mast and an array
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Debris from China's 2007 anti-satellite missile test makes close ISS flyby

Bits of Chinese space junk are flying near the International Space Station, and the astronauts on board are prepared to take cover. While space junk threats to the station are nothing new, this one is unique -- the debris
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Russia building new $900-million-dollar spaceport for commercial space industry

As for NASA's future continue to generate gridlock in Washington DC, the Russians are investing $800 million in a new spaceport in the country's far eastern region. The spaceport, which will relieve
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Juno Probe, Built to Study Jupiter's Radiation Belt, Gets A Titanium Suit of Interplanetary Armor

Image: Armored Spacecraft Workers place the special radiation vault for NASA's Juno spacecraft onto the propulsion module. Juno's radiation
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Loaner NASA Rover Helps Solve Cold Murder Case in California

Add gumshoe detective to NASA's resume. Last year, scientists from the space agency working with the US Geological Survey and the Menlo Park District Attorney's office solved
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Japan Plans to Send its Own Tweeting Humanoid Robot to the ISS in 2013

When the humanoid Robonaut takes off for the ISS next week aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, his days as the sole humanoid in orbit may already be numbered. JAXA, the Japanese space agency, has announced that it plans to send its own humanoid
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Final Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery Now Delayed Until Feb. 3 At The Earliest

Another day, another piece of bad news for space shuttle Discovery. The aging shuttle will launch on its last mission no earlier than Feb. 3, NASA announced today. Mission
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After solar flare sprays Earth with charged plasma, a beautiful aurora

On Sunday, sunspot number 1092 emitted a C-class solar flare--not a large one, by solar flare standards. But NASA scientists were intrigued by what accompanied it -- an unusually fast corona mass ejection that sent a large cloud of charged plasma toward Earth. There will be no adverse effects
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Test uses handedness of molecules to search for life on other worlds

Many of life's building blocks, such as amino acids, sugars and other molecules, are chiral -- meaning they come in two identical forms, mirror images of each other. Most life on Earth tends to prefer one side over the other, such as right-handed glucose molecules.
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Juno Probe, Built to Study Jupiter's Radiation Belt, Gets A Titanium Suit of Interplanetary Armor

Image: Armored Spacecraft Workers place the special radiation vault for NASA's Juno spacecraft onto the propulsion module. Juno's radiation
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Astronomers Make Extraordinarily Detailed Map of the Universe's Dark Matter

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have made one of the most detailed dark matter maps ever, taking advantage of the dark matter's own gravitational effects to bring it into the light. The map suggests massive galaxy clusters may have formed earlier
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IBM Unveils Nanophotonic Chips that Could Lead the Exascale Computing Revolution

IBM is prepped to lead the way into the next era of exascale computing, at least if the technology they showed off at a convention today in Chiba, Japan can live up to
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Orbiting 3-D Printers Could Print Out New Space Stations

Now that we've begun 3D printing anything and everything here on Earth, it's time
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Loaner NASA Rover Helps Solve Cold Murder Case in California

Add gumshoe detective to NASA's resume. Last year, scientists from the space agency working with the US Geological Survey and the Menlo Park District Attorney's office solved
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Blurry Nebula Image Marks Success for Flying Telescope, NASA Says

After months of calibration and testing, NASA's flying telescope made its first excursion this morning, and the space agency is looking forward to analyzing the
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Proposed Hopping Mars Rover Will Harvest Its Own Fuel

The next generation of Mars rovers may not rove at all, instead bouncing around the planet while harvesting carbon dioxide for fuel. A new Mars hopper concept involves a carbon
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Astronomers Find Massive, Previously Undetected Gamma Radiation Bubbles Adorning the Milky Way

A Harvard astronomer and his team have turned up something quite big while running publicly available data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and by big we mean both in scientific
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New Climate Models Predict Hurricane Seasons Years in Advance

It's still hard to know just how big an Atlantic hurricane is going to get or where it might make landfall until just days before it strikes, but meteorologists have long been able to predict with fair certainty how many hurricanes will be spawned in the next hurricane
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Spirit Rover Finds Evidence of Liquid Water on Mars

The brave little rover has been stuck in the sand for a year and a half, spinning her wheels and wiggling her robot arm futilely. As she's kicked up sand, though, she has uncovered deeper layers of Martian soil, and analysis of the difference between the surface and
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Astronomers Use Hubble Data to Predict the Movement of Stars For the Next 10,000 Years

Just last week we learned that Hubble has glimpsed the most distant object ever recorded, an object so far away that it offered
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NASA and DARPA Plan ‘Hundred-Year Starship' To Bring Humans to Other Worlds And Leave Them There Forever

If NASA ever gets a clear directive for interplanetary exploration, a new Hundred-Year Starship could be their version of the Mayflower. And like
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Final Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery Now Delayed Until Feb. 3 At The Earliest

Another day, another piece of bad news for space shuttle Discovery. The aging shuttle will launch on its last mission no earlier than Feb. 3, NASA announced today. Mission
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NASA's Newly Discovered Arsenic-Loving Bacteria Are Fascinating, but Not Aliens [Updated + Video]

So everyone chill out. It does raise interesting questions for alien life-hunters, however Biologists have isolated a bacterium that can use a deadly chemical in place of one of life's key building blocks, in a finding NASA says could have major implications for astrobiology
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Blurry Nebula Image Marks Success for Flying Telescope, NASA Says

After months of calibration and testing, NASA's flying telescope made its first excursion this morning, and the space agency is looking forward to analyzing the
Read more...


IBM Unveils Nanophotonic Chips that Could Lead the Exascale Computing Revolution

IBM is prepped to lead the way into the next era of exascale computing, at least if the technology they showed off at a convention today in Chiba, Japan can live up to
Read more...