http://phys.org/space-news/space-exploration/ en-us PhysOrg Team Phys.Org provides the latest news on space, space exploration, space science and earth sciences. (Phys.org) -- ESA’s Venus Express and Proba-2 space missions, along with the international SOHO, Hinode, and Hubble spacecraft, are preparing to monitor Venus and the Sun during the transit of Earth’s sister planet during 5-6 June. http://phys.org/news258055841.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T19:10:59-07:00 (AP) -- NASA has received a gift from an unexpected source — the nation's satellite spy agency. http://phys.org/news258055229.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T19:00:34-07:00 A kitchen gadget used to sift flour and other ingredients is the inspiration behind the name of an emerging technology that could resolve some of the more intriguing components of the sun's chromosphere -- the irregular layer above the photosphere that contributes to the formation of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. http://phys.org/news258051033.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T17:50:46-07:00 (Phys.org) -- The RHESSI (Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager) satellite focuses on the highest energy x-rays and gamma-rays produced by the sun, helping to observe solar flares of all shapes and sizes. The satellite is pointed toward the sun, and constantly in rotation, which provides a serendipitous bit of side research: by monitoring the limb of the sun on its four second rotation cycle, RHESSI's Solar Aspect System (SAS) has produced ten years worth of precise measurements of the sun's diameter. This has already provided scientists with one of the most accurate measurements of what's called the oblateness of the sun, which is the difference between the diameter from pole to pole and the equatorial diameter. With the new data obtained during the Venus Transit on June 5-6, 2012, the RHESSI team hopes to improve the knowledge of the exact shape of the sun and provide a more accurate measure of the diameter than has previously been obtained. http://phys.org/news258050907.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T17:48:36-07:00 SpaceX, the upstart company that shot a capsule to the International Space Station and back last week, won't have much time to savor its first major success. http://phys.org/news258027943.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T11:40:01-07:00 Every ~120 years a dark spot glides across the Sun. Small, inky-black, almost perfectly circular, it's no ordinary sunspot. Not everyone can see it, but some who do get the strangest feeling, of standing, toes curled in the damp sand, on the beach of a South Pacific isle.... http://phys.org/news258017360.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T09:20:01-07:00 (Phys.org) -- The last transit of the planet Venus until 2117 will happen June 5 in the Western Hemisphere (June 6 in the Eastern Hemisphere). Venus will cross the face of the sun, appearing as a black dot on the sun's bright disk. http://phys.org/news258017129.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T09:10:01-07:00 The first partial lunar eclipse of the year provided dramatic scenes across Asia late Monday, with a clear moon visible to many as the event unfolded. http://phys.org/news258018627.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T08:50:34-07:00 When Venus transits the sun on June 5th and 6th, an armada of spacecraft and ground-based telescopes will be on the lookout for something elusive and, until recently, unexpected: The Arc of Venus. http://phys.org/news258017251.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-04T08:28:00-07:00 Following is a factfile on Venus, which will align with Earth and the Sun from the evening of next Tuesday, a "transit" that will next occur 105 years from now. http://phys.org/news257922084.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-03T06:30:01-07:00 When Venus next week eclipses Earth, an event that will not occur again for more than a century, millions of skygazers may have romantic thoughts about our closest neighbour and its twilight beauty. http://phys.org/news257922046.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-03T06:20:01-07:00 Astronomers this week are poised for a double show of rare events but skywatchers in the Pacific and East Asia will have the best view, experts say. http://phys.org/news257922008.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-03T06:00:34-07:00 (Phys.org) -- A University of Iowa researcher wants you to visualize a plate of spaghetti when you think of the northern lights. http://phys.org/news257797990.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T19:33:17-07:00 On June 5, 2012 at 6:03 PM EDT, the planet Venus will do something it has done only seven times since the invention of the telescope: cross in front of the sun. This transit is among the rarest of planetary alignments and it has an odd cycle. Two such Venus transits always occur within eight years of each other and then there is a break of either 105 or 121 years before it happens again. http://phys.org/news257797708.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T19:28:41-07:00 (Phys.org) -- A Venus transit across the face of the sun is a relatively rare event -- occurring in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. There have been all of 53 transits of Venus across the sun between 2000 B.C. and the last one in 2004. On Wednesday, June 6 (Tuesday, June 5 from the Western Hemisphere), Earth gets another shot at it - and the last for a good long while.  But beyond this uniquely celestial oddity, why has Venus been an object worthy of ogling for hundreds of centuries? http://phys.org/news257760277.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T09:13:55-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Although ESA’s Artemis telecommunications satellite has officially completed its mission, it still has plenty to offer. Reaching its working orbit almost 11 years ago after an arduous journey, Artemis continues to communicate with Earth. http://phys.org/news257759801.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T08:58:39-07:00 In the largest ice caves on Earth, spacesuits and remote-controlled planetary rovers were for the first time tested in a five-day odyssey in the Alps designed to mimic potential future missions on Mars. http://phys.org/news257759075.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T08:44:45-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems successfully completed a "captive carry test" of its full-scale Dream Chaser orbital crew vehicle Tuesday, marking a new milestone in the company's effort to develop transportation for astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. http://phys.org/news257753328.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T07:09:06-07:00 (Phys.org) -- NASA engineers working on the new Space Launch System (SLS) can now begin developing the advanced, heavy-lift launch vehicle's flight software using newly delivered software test bed computers from Boeing. http://phys.org/news257752503.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T06:55:12-07:00 (Phys.org) -- In August 1976 Luna 24 landed on the moon and returned to Earth with samples of rocks, which were found to contain water, but this finding was ignored by scientists in the West. http://phys.org/news257747247.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T05:33:34-07:00 It's a spectacle that won't repeat for another century — the sight of Venus slowly inching across the face of the sun. http://phys.org/news257744074.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T05:10:01-07:00 Astronauts aboard the International Space Station will soon get a special screening of "The Avengers," the blockbuster movie about superheroes defending Earth from aliens. http://phys.org/news257744216.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-06-01T04:37:03-07:00 (Phys.org) -- On May 17, 2012 an M-class flare exploded from the sun. The eruption also shot out a burst of solar particles traveling at nearly the speed of light that reached Earth about 20 minutes after the light from the flare. An M-class flare is considered a "moderate" flare, at least ten times less powerful than the largest X-class flares, but the particles sent out on May 17 were so fast and energetic that when they collided with atoms in Earth's atmosphere, they caused a shower of particles to cascade down toward Earth's surface. The shower created what's called a ground level enhancement (GLE). http://phys.org/news257697925.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T15:45:36-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Recent findings from NASA's Cassini mission reveal that Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus provides a special laboratory for watching unusual behavior of plasma, or hot ionized gas. In these recent findings, some Cassini scientists think they have observed "dusty plasma," a condition theorized but not previously observed on site, near Enceladus. http://phys.org/news257696769.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T15:26:15-07:00 US company SpaceX's cargo vessel Thursday splash landed in the Pacific Ocean, capping a successful mission to the International Space Station that blazed a new path for private spaceflight. http://phys.org/news257687874.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T12:58:03-07:00 When the sun launched a moderate, or M-class, solar flare May 17, 2012, it was still one of the largest eruptions seen since late January when our star began to rouse from an anomalously long quiet period. But the event was not just an additional solar wake-up call; it produced something that has the solar physics community puzzled and scientists from the University of New Hampshire poised to analyze a singular dataset gathered during the event by a European satellite called PAMELA – short for Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics. http://phys.org/news257687469.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T12:51:19-07:00 The unmanned Dragon cargo vessel operated by US company SpaceX on Thursday completed its deorbit burn, one of the final steps in its return to Earth for an ocean landing, NASA said. http://phys.org/news257681650.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T11:14:15-07:00 Tiny amounts of methane in the Martian atmosphere may come not from living things, but from meteorites on the red planet's surface, the latest findings suggest. http://phys.org/news257673703.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T09:01:50-07:00 UC Davis alumnus Gregory Jorgensen ’90, Ph.D. ’95, presented UC Davis geologist Qing-Zhu Yin with a donation today, May 30, of a meteorite piece that fell beside his driveway in Coloma, Calif. http://phys.org/news257672911.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T08:48:35-07:00 The US company SpaceX's Dragon cargo vessel was released by the robotic arm of the International Space Station early Thursday at the start of its return to Earth from an historic mission. http://phys.org/news257657167.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2012-05-31T04:26:22-07:00