Astronomy
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18 Student Science Experiments Lost In Rocket Explosion
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. ...Read More
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Rocket Explosion Comes At A Tough Time For NASA
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. ...Read More
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What Are The Origins Of The Universe?
Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode How It All Began. About David Christian's TED Talk David Christian explains the history of the universe from the big bang, and how humans occupy little more than a millisecond on that cosmic timeline. About David Christian David Christian is a historian ...Read More
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NASA’s MAVEN Mission Investigates Mars’ Atmosphere
NASA's latest mission to Mars, MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution), entered Martian orbit less than a month ago on September 21. It's already rewarded us with revealing insights into the disappearance of Mars' atmosphere.
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Set Your Alarm for the Early Morning Total Lunar Eclipse on October 8
In the wee morning hours of Wednesday, October 8, a total lunar eclipse will occur, delighting anyone of the lucky side of the Earth willing to set their alarms extra early.
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Mission To Study Mars' Climate Enters Red Planet's Orbit
This Sunday night, we headed back to Mars: NASA's MAVEN spacecraft fired its six main engines, slowing down enough so it could be captured by the gravity of the red planet and go into orbit. MAVEN, which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, is a distinctly un-sexy name for a ...Read More
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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Arrives at the Foot of Mars’ Mount Sharp
Curiosity has reached the base of Mount Sharp, its primary mission goal. It's a 3-mile-high mound of sediment that preserves a geologic record of Mars going back billions of years.
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Near-Earth Object To Come 25,000 Miles Close
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. ...Read More
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NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Will Explore Mars’ Upper Atmosphere
On September 21, NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft will go boldly where no one has gone before: to the very top of the Martian atmosphere!
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ESA’s Rosetta Spacecraft Makes a First-Ever Comet Rendezvous
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta has reached its target -- the Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko -- becoming the first spacecraft in history to rendezvous with a comet.
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NASA’s Opportunity Rolls a Record Distance on Mars
One of NASA's most senior and still-operational spacecraft reached a milestone: the rover Opportunity completed its first 25 miles traveling across the surface of Mars!
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Europe’s Rosetta Spacecraft Will Soon Ride a Comet
Europe's Rosetta mission is poised to add another extraterrestrial landfall to a very short list, and top a new list as it becomes the first mission to land a probe on a comet.
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NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft: A Decade of Discovery at Saturn
A decade ago, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, the largest and most complex robotic probe yet built, arrived in the Saturn system to begin a marathon exploration of the gas giant, its famous and awe-inspiring rings and what has turned out to be a collection of some of the most eye-opening moons in the solar system.
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Carbon-Tracking Satellite Will Monitor Earth’s ‘Breathing’
The data could yield a much more precise picture of how accumulating greenhouse gases will affect the planet.
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Newly Discovered Object in Space May Signal the Presence of Two Distant Worlds
Will the generation that is coming into the world today know more than eight, more than nine, solar planets? Some recent observations make this prospect sound like a strong possibility.
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Studying Exoplanets: What A Thousand Points of Light Might Reveal About Earth
As a flood of new exoplanets swim into our ken, we have ways of turning these pixel-size steams of data into insights about our own planet.
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Kepler 10c: An Unexpected Heavyweight Earth
How big can an Earth-like planet be? Astronomers thought they had a pretty good handle on this question but have just been given a fresh example of how nature never ceases to outpace our imaginations and show us something unexpected.
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From 63 Light Years Away, An Exoplanet is Ready for Its Closeup
Recently, a major milestone in space exploration was reached: a planet was captured in a picture! The big deal is that the planet captured in this shot, a gas giant planet named Beta Pictoris b, is 63 light years away--over 100,000 times farther away than even Pluto.
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May Camelopardalids, We Hardly Saw You
No, we didn't see a meteor shower. But the late-night stars and pictures were pretty good. ...Read More