CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The privately bankrolled Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station for a historic docking Friday, captured by astronauts wielding a giant robot arm. … U.S. astronaut Donald Pettit used the space station’s 58-foot robot arm to snare the gleaming white Dragon after a few hours of extra checks and maneuvers. […]
When “Men in Black 3” opens everywhere over Memorial Day weekend, most moviegoers will just be hoping this sequel matches the original for popcorn-munching fun. But there are many people who say they’ve been victimized by and live in fear of real MIBs. And those stories, told for decades, are just as terrifying as they […]
Right now, the roughly 20,000 man-made objects orbiting the Earth are less regulated than the cars on a morning commute. Satellites are usually on a fixed path, so the traffic control comes prelaunch. … The International Telecom Union, a United Nations agency, assigns satellites slots in a geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above Earth. Operators must […]
A leather-bound religious text, thought to date from the fifth century but discovered only 12 years ago, will cause the collapse of Christianity worldwide, Iran has claimed. The book, written on animal hide, was confiscated during an anti-smuggling operation in Turkey’s Mediterranean region in 2000. Turkish authorities believe it could be an authentic version of […]
A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy really is just next door as large galaxies go. So close, and spanning some 260,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite’s telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light. While its spiral arms […]
It was a typical Texas sunset except that most of the Sun was missing. The location of the missing piece of the Sun was not a mystery — it was behind the Moon. Sunday night’s partial eclipse of the Sun by the Moon turned into one of the best photographed astronomical events in history. Gallery […]
When making its closest pass yet of Saturn’s moon Dione late last year, the robotic Cassini spacecraft snapped this far-ranging picture featuring Dione, Saturn’s rings, and the two small moons Epimetheus and Prometheus. The above image captures part of the heavily cratered snow-white surface of the 1,100 kilometer wide Dione, the thinness of Saturn’s rings, […]
Scientists say the magnetic north pole is moving toward Russia and the fallout has reached — of all places — Tampa International Airport. The airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to repaint the numeric designators at each end and change taxiway signage to account for the shift in location of the Earth’s […]
JACKSON LAKE, WYOMING—The world may not end on 21 December 2012, as predicted by some doomsayers, but one thing is certain: Earth won’t be around forever. Astronomers at the Extreme Solar Systems II conference here, who study the birth and evolution of planetary systems, are also coming to grips with the ultimate fate of planets like […]
By Dan Nosowitz Masayoshi Son, entrepreneurial founder of Softbank, Japan’s third-largest mobile network, and according to Forbes, the nation’s richest man, unveiled a vague but undeniably ambitious plan to completely change Japan’s energy infrastructure. His plan, which relies heavily on wind and geothermal power and abandons nuclear, would, he says, shift the majority of Japan’s energy […]
