News tagged with solar probe

A big surprise from the edge of the solar system: magnetic bubbles (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Voyager probes are truly going where no one has gone before. Gliding silently toward the stars, 9 billion miles from Earth, they are beaming back news from the most distant, unexplored ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jun 09, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (35) | comments 25 | with audio podcast

Voyager set to enter interstellar space

(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 30 years after they left Earth, NASA's twin Voyager probes are now at the edge of the solar system. Not only that, they're still working. And with each passing day they are beaming ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 29, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (26) | comments 18 | with audio podcast

Future NASA mission to sun 'a life's dream' for some

The chest-high rack of electronics Justin Kasper is assembling in a Massachusetts office park will fit in a shoe box before he's done.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 16, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (24) | comments 10

Nonterrestrial artifacts hard to pin down

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two Pioneer probes left our solar system carrying plaques about humankind, and two Voyager probes will soon join them to gather information about places far out in our galaxy. We can and will send more autonomous ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 07, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Japan test fires Venus probe engine

Japan said it had successfully test-fired the engine of its "Akatsuki" space probe in preparation for a renewed attempt to get it into orbit around Venus in 2015.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Sep 08, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 4

Gentle nudges towards Vesta

The Dawn space probe entered into an orbit around the planetoid Vesta. The planetoid is 2.3 times further from the Sun than the Earth. Dawn used the force of gravity to get there. And an ion engine.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Aug 02, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Thermoelectric materials: recycling energy

(PhysOrg.com) -- For some years now, NASA has been using what are called thermoelectric materials to power its space probes. The probes travel such great distances from our sun that solar panels are no longer ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 31, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

MESSENGER spacecraft to swing into orbit around Mercury on March 17

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists are excited about solving some of the mysteries surrounding our smallest and hottest planet. The findings are expected to broaden our understanding of rocky planets, more and more ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 14, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Japan probe reaches Venus but shuts itself down (Update)

(AP) -- A Japanese space probe sent to the thick clouds of Venus shut itself down, and its future looks as hazy as the planet it was built to study.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 07, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 4

Water on Moon is bad news for China's lunar telescope

The discovery of water on the Moon could affect a telescope that will be installed on China's first lunar lander, scheduled in 2013, a Chinese astronomer was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Sep 20, 2010 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 0

NASA's Magnetospheric Mission Passes Major Milestone

(PhysOrg.com) -- The universe is still an arcane place that scientists know very little about, but a new NASA Solar Terrestrial Probe mission is going to shed light on one especially mysterious event called ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Sep 06, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (9) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Land Ho! Huygens Plunged to Titan Surface 5 Years Ago

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Huygens probe parachuted down to the surface of Saturn's haze-shrouded moon Titan exactly five years ago on Jan. 14, 2005, providing data that scientists on NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 14, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (9) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Solar Probe Plus: NASA solar study mission moves to next design stage

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two-thousand-degree temperatures, supersonic solar particles, intense radiation – all of this awaits NASA’s Solar Probe Plus during an unprecedented close-up study of the sun.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 07, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

A tool to touch the sun

A scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is leading an effort to design an instrument that would be the first to come directly into contact with the sun’s fiery atmosphere ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 25, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 6

Comet-chasing probe goes into hibernation in 10-year trek

A billion-euro (1.47-billion-dollar) space probe was placed in hibernation on Wednesday until 2014, when it will be woken for a deep-space rendezvous with a comet, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jun 08, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0