Did you ever wonder what equipment a rock hound in space would bring along? On October 19, planetary geologist Dr. Kelsey Young will present “The Future of Planetary Surface Exploration,” where she will highlight the development of portable tools and technology that will accompany future astronauts. Dr. Young is a research scientist at NASA Goddard …
On September 29, Dr. C. Alex Young will present “A Space Weather Report: Preparing Space Explorers for Bad Weather throughout the Solar System.” As the Associate Director of Science for the Heliophysics Science Division at Goddard Space Flight Center, Dr. Young specializes in studying space weather and solar storms and oversees education and public outreach. …
The Library of Congress web site has a wealth of resources that may be helpful to you and to your students. Here are just a few suggestions… Your first stop should be the Science Reference Section’s web page. One fun resource you will see is their Everyday Mysteries project with “mysteries” like Why is it …
The public is invited to a free talk called “The Science of Interstellar: Life on Planets Around Black Holes” with Dr. Jeremy Schnittman in the Pickford Theater on third floor of the Madison Building on Tuesday, May 3, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.. Jeremy Schnittman is a research astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight …
Pluto has become one of our most favorite bodies in the solar system, perhaps gaining increased appreciation after it was demoted from a full-sized planet to dwarf planet in 2006 and thus decreasing our solar system planet count to eight planets. A significant portion of Pluto’s mass is icy material and so it is often referred …
In late 2007 the Dawn mission spacecraft launched and began the 1.8 billion mile journey to the giant asteroid Vesta, which it reached in 2011. It was the first spacecraft to orbit a main-belt asteroid. In March 2015 it completed another 990 million miles to the dwarf planet Ceres and was the first spacecraft to …
The first exoplanets, or extrasolar planets, were definitively discovered in the 1990s, although the idea of other worlds like ours goes back to the ancient Greeks, and their existence had been theorized by Giordano Bruno in the 16th century and Isaac Newton in the 18th. The first direct images of exoplanets were produced in 2008. …
Did you know that there are frozen volcanoes that spew icy particles and water vapor, instead of fiery molten rock? You’ll have to travel millions or billions of miles into the outer solar system to find icy volcanism, also known as cryovolcanism. Many of NASA’s missions to the far-reaches of our solar system have provided evidence …
Today’s post is from Carlyn Osborn, a Library Technician in the Geography and Map Division. Carlyn has a B.A. in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from Johns Hopkins University and is currently a graduate student at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. With high-resolution images of Pluto and the search for …
