Space

Saturn Still Looks Young And Hot For Its Age

As planets age the general rule is that they become darker and cooler- but Saturn is an exception. Why it looks so young for its age has been a space science topic since the late 1960s but a paper in Nature Geoscience says it has some answers. ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 30 2013 - 11:01am

How To Tell Time On Saturn When The North And South Poles Have Different Day Lengths

We all know time is relative, just like we know that the plates are moving around underneath us, but both time and that the earth is not moving still 'ground' us on a daily basis. ...

Article - News Staff - May 3 2013 - 10:43am

Mount Sharp On Mars Likely Formed By Wind, Not Water

A roughly 3.5-mile high Martian mound  known as Mount Sharp is not evidence of a massive lake but might be the result of the Red Planet's famously dusty atmosphere, a new analysis has found. If correct, the research dilutes expectations that the moun ...

Article - News Staff - May 6 2013 - 3:31pm

BEER Method Of Finding Planets Scores Its First Discovery

Detecting alien worlds is a significant challenge since they are small, faint, and close to their stars. The two most prolific techniques for finding exoplanets are radial velocity (looking for wobbling stars) and transits (looking for dimming stars).  A ...

Article - News Staff - May 13 2013 - 2:56pm

Astronaut Releases Highest-Budget Music Video Ever

The music-recording industry has been under pressure lately, as it struggles to adapt to the age of the internet.  This is the second major structural revolution to challenge the recording industry in the past few decades, the first being when video killed ...

Article - Robert Cooper - May 14 2013 - 2:58pm

Galaxy 4C+29.30- How A Supermassive Black Hole's Gravity Can Be Tapped To Generate Immense Power

 4C+29.30, a galaxy located some 850 million light years from Earth, has a new composite image which shows how the intense gravity of a supermassive black hole can be tapped to generate immense power.  This multi-wavelength view reveals that the radio emi ...

Article - News Staff - May 15 2013 - 10:37pm

What's The Weather Forecast For Uranus And Neptune? Even Worse Than Kentucky

Uranus and Neptune have a lot in common, climate-wise, even though Uranus is tipped on its side with the pole facing the sun during winter.  They are both home to extreme winds blowing at speeds of over 1000 km/hour, they have hurricane-like storms as big ...

Article - News Staff - May 17 2013 - 9:46am

Explosion On The Moon

During the Bush administration, NASA began monitoring the Moon for explosions- they have turned out to be more common than previously believed, happening hundreds of times each year.  Smart Science 2.0 readers are already wondering how there can be an  ...

Article - News Staff - May 20 2013 - 11:55am

The Surfing Is Great On Titan This Time Of Year

Saturn's moon Titan might be in for some wild weather as it heads into its spring and summer, if two new models are correct. Scientists think that as the seasons change in Titan's northern hemisphere, waves could ripple across the moon's hyd ...

Article - News Staff - May 25 2013 - 12:39pm

Who Can Launch a CubeSat?

In the half year since I wrote last September, the CubeSat field has greatly moved forward.  Seven CubeSats have launched since that last blog include ESTCube-1 (solar sail test), Pegasus (testing carbon nanocubes for thermal control), the first PhoneSats ...

Blog Post - Project Calliope - May 28 2013 - 2:16pm