RT report looks at the upcoming exploration by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft which is approaching the dwarf planet Ceres (named after the Roman goddess of agriculture). Located in the asteroid belt, this 950 km wide body of rock and ice was previously categorized as an asteroid. Dawn will try to learn more about Ceres, which up till now has been a bit of a mysterious dwarf planet, including looking for any signs of (previous microbial) life.
The European Space Agency’s Philae lander/probe separated from the Rosetta spacecraft and successfully landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. A great day for the ESA, the various scientists involved and for all space enthusiasts.
In the future, we will hopefully be able to reap many more positive benefits from what was learned and accomplished by this bold mission to land on a comet.
There are some very strange things that exist in space within our universe. Here are ten phenomenons that humans have been able to categorize as “bizarre” (so far).
Watch the video to learn more about methane rain on Titan, debris umbrellas on Io, strongest electrical currents from black holes, Transformer pulsar, Jupiter’s trademark red spot, huge water reservoir in an unreachable quasar, rogue planets, asteroid composed almost exclusively of iron and nickel, Barchan dunes on Mars and an asteroid with six tails.
After 10 years and six billion kilometers, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft finally caught up with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will study this tiny comet for the next fifteen months including a historic event in November when the Rosetta spacecraft will deploy its small robotic lander (Philae) to land on the rock and ice made comet. The Rosetta lander will take samples from the comet and help investigate the composition and history of the comet. The mission will also study the comet as it makes its journey around the Sun. This footage is from the ESA’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
This RT report is about a NASA event which occurred in Washington this week, discussing the time and technology needed to find life outside of Earth. Among the group of top NASA scientists presenting to the American space agency’s head, Charles Bolden, were Sara Seager, Kevin Hand, John Grunsfeld, Matt Mountain and Ellen Stofan. What makes these scientists so confident is the upcoming generation of space telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope, which are greatly increasing our ability to explore the universe and answer the age old question of “Are we alone?“