If we’re ever going to explore and eventuallycolonize the galaxy, we’re going to needfunctioning propulsion systems to do it. This goes for the nearest star, or the otherside of the Milky Way. So here...
Today’s episode, the Spaceship PropulsionCompendium, is going to be a long one, sinceI am going to try to touch at least brieflyon every system including some of the moreunlikely ones. I will leave out...
There’s been all kinds of buzz lately aboutsome new space tech that could send a spacecraftto Mars in 3 days, and maybe even get spaceshipsto exoplanets that are light-years away. Which kind of sounds...
People always ask me why we’re stuck withchemical rockets. Seriously, exploding a bunch of hydrogen orkerosene is the best we can do?Good news, there are other, exotic sciencefiction-sounding propulsion systems out therewhich use electromagnetic...
Since the dawn of the space age, in the middleof the 20th century, we’ve sent unmannedprobes all over the solar system, which havegiven us some incredible images of the planetsand moons that are part...
About 4. 3 light-years from Earth lies ourclosest stellar neighborhood. The Alpha Centauri system consists of threeknown stars. Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B area binary pair, which meansthey orbit a common center...
Our lonely patch of the sky just got alittle less lonely with theidentification of a rocky, Earth-sizedplanet neighboring the star closest to our own Sun. On August 24th, 2016,researchers announced the exciting news:that they...
Welcome to orbital dynamics. This is a multi-part course on the basics of orbital dynamics. The orbital dynamicsor orbital mechanics textbooks assumefamiliarity with calculus and all thealgebra and trig that goes along with that....
The planets orbit the Sun in a counterclockwisedirection as viewed from above the Sun’s northpole, and the planets’ orbits all are alignedto what astronomers call the ecliptic plane. The story of our greater understanding...
So, contrary to what you see in moviesspacecraft can’t just sit around inspace near a planet because they’d fallright into it. To stay in space we needto get into orbit. So first we take...
The Cassini Mission has beenexploring the Saturn systemfor nearly 13 years and hasrewritten the textbookson the ringed planetand its moonsbut the spacecraft ispretty much out of fuel. Following NASA’s planetaryprotection guidelines,the mission willend with...
Black holes are the most powerful things in the universe, strong enough to rip whole stars into atom sized piecesWell, this is scary enough. They have an even more powerful and dark property: they...
Black holes are one of the strangest things in existence. They don’t seem to make any sense at all. Where do they come from. . . . . . and what happens if you...
What’s inside a black holeBlack holes are mysterious and bizarre objects in the universe that really have no explanation in factWe hardly know anything about what lies inside of a black?Hole we know and...
Drifting alone through the darkness of space,a small capsule traverses the void. Onboard, the two pioneers prepare forthe next step of their voyage. Mere hours ago, history had been made. For the first time,...
– You know Marsis the closest placethat we can reach with robotic explorationthat we think had a really good chanceof having ancient life. – The Perseverance Rover will landat a location called Jezero Crater....
And we have confirmation thatDragon is now under 100m . . . Is 100m above the surfaceof the ocean. Next up: standing byfor splash down. And there we have confirmationof splash down. Dragon has...
so it appears that the launch of NASA’sperseverance Rover has been delayedagain this is getting a bit too closefor our taste now because the launchwindow is only one month wide andChina’s Mars mission meanwhile...
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