Star racing around center of Milky Way and the problem with space debris

Space debris around Planet Earth will have to be dealt with

The satellites around the Earth are going to have come to be very careful as time goes on.

Space debris is the last thing on people’s minds when they watch Satellite TV and look up stuff on their GPS, but using a lot of everyday items such as these will depend on how we take care of the space around us. We don’t want to come to a situation where we are even unable to make a space flight because of the mounting space debris. There is the case of the Chinese blasting their own satellite to show off their anti-satellite capability which has contributed to what has become known as the Kessler Syndrome.

The Hubble Space Telescope does it again

The eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, is a photo that contains the farthest glimpse into the universe ever.

Space agencies are seeing further than ever before and it allows us humans to gather valuable knowledge about the beginnings of the universe. The picture by the Hubble Telescope was assembled utilizing Hubble Telescope views over a decade.

The universe is estimated to have a 13.7 billion-year lifespan and the galaxies in the XDF photo go back as much as 13.2 billion years. The Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3 were used by Hubble to generate this image. Astronomers are now able to examine the universe by seeing into the depths of space and time.

The discovery of the Higgs boson

The "God Particle" found

Next month there is a big decision that has to be made in the world of physics with the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded. But appropriately giving credit for the discovery of the "God Particle" is no easy task. There are whole countries that are clamoring for the physics world to recognize their intellectuals and the contributions they have made. 

A lot of people have difficulty in comprehending the need for space exploration. Here is a fact I'd like to share: four percent of the United States labor force is comprised of scientists and engineers, but they create jobs for the other 96 percent.

Those in the scientific community recognize the significance of this Higgs boson discovery and marvel at what physicists can do by harnessing the Higgs field. For those of you studying physics, this is a new opening for a job related to what you are studying or have studied.

The Higgs Boson, Part I

The Martian Dream

Could there possibly be a new space race?

Since ancient times, people have always dreamt of the Red Planet. When looking at what governments are hoping to do in the future, there is an indication that there could be another space race. This is all very exciting for me, but will it be governments like Japan and Russia that will lead the way or will it be the Americans who will be the pioneers like they always have been?

When looking at the future, you can look at it with a glass half full or half empty. I choose the former and the United States has made strong progress with its $2.5 billion Curiosity Rover mission that a human mission to Mars is being strongly considered by planners and policymakers.

NASA's Voyager 1 is now celebrating its 35th anniversary

Voyager 1 is set to leave the solar system

The Voyager 1 was a very exciting project by NASA that has paid big dividends. The images that it has captured has given us so much knowledge over the years. There is still more to come.

The Voyager 1 will be the first ever manmade object to go beyond the Sun's sphere of influence. The heliopause is the region that Voyager 1 will cover in the next two years before moving out into the Milky Way. It will be interesting to see what information Voyager 1 can send back to Earth after having done that.

The universe is stranger than Star Wars

Truth is stranger than fiction.

George Lucas created the Star Wars saga at a time when Americans were less optimistic with all of the events happening around them like the Watergate Scandal. But the more time goes by, it seems that a lot of the exotic worlds Star Wars showed have been found by astronomers in the Universe.

Tatooine-like planets

Luke Skywalker's home planet is Tatooine and in the episode, A New Hope, he looks at the sunset which shows two suns. A lot of physicists and astronomers at the time thought this was a wild depiction, but it turns out that the Universe has this too and these worlds are not rare.

Saturn's moon Mimas: The fictional death star

Mimas has a very big, circular crater that resembles quite extraordinarily the Star Wars' Death Star's "superlaser focus lens."

Neil Armstrong remembered for his contributions to mankind

The astronaut passed away at the age of 82.

Neil Armstrong has inspired generations of Americans with the moon landing. We, as people, are still waiting for a similar feat. The landing of the Mars Rover Curiosity has reignited hopes that humans will set foot on the Red Planet.

The moon landing and the first atomic bomb will go down as the two significant happenings for mankind in the 20th century. Furthermore, it is a ‘giant step for mankind’ and will go down in history like the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. The thing that was significant was that it was not just celebrated as an indicator of American technological superiority, but for the people of planet Earth as a whole.

New discovery in the search for extraterrestrial life

Planets in an alien solar system are arranged in a similar way to our own solar system.

This new discovery by astronomers supports the prevalent planet formation theory that is out there. It is from the star system known as Kepler-30, which is almost 10,000 light years from planet Earth. The planets that orbit the star Kepler-30 are rather big with a couple of them being even bigger than the gas giant Jupiter.

The current technology that mankind has makes it hard for us to observe any planets that are the size of Earth or smaller at the distances of 10,000 light years or so. But NASA agrees that this discovery is still a breakthrough and sheds light into many theories and ideas that have been made regarding planet formation and how our solar system came into being.

Rest in Peace, Sally Ride

Ride’s courage and inspiring presence will be remembered forever.

My best friend in high school and I bonded over Sally Ride in Spanish class. One of the first things I can ever remember asking her was, “So, who is Sally Ride?” You have to remember that we didn’t have Internet back then, kiddies—well, we were just starting to, but my family sure didn’t have it yet. She was always talking about the first female astronaut and how she wanted to be one, and I was immediately attached to her as a kindred soul—and Ride as a trailblazing one.

The search for asteroids steps up

A private telescope is what asteroid hunters want.

Asteroid mining is set to be the future of space exploration because people on this planet have to start realizing that there has to be a valiant effort made at trying to get more access to resources. We don’t want to wait until it is too late and with the rate of population growth, it is pretty important that a conscientious effort will be made.

For now, though, astronomers and people at NASA seem to be focusing on locating asteroids that could possibly harm life on planet Earth. In order to better protect this planet, asteroid hunters are hopeful that they can obtain a private telescope.

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