• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: NASA Needs YOU — To Name Its New Rover

• Mars
• NASA
• Rover

There is an important election happening right now!  You can vote to name NASA’s next Mars rover.  The Agency held an essay contest and invited students from around the country to propose a fitting name for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover and write a short essay about it.  The nine finalists are: Endurance, K-4, Oliver Jacobs […]

• Cosmos

Not Wanting to Miss a Thing, ESA is Officially On-Board to Blast Asteroids with NASA

• AIDA
• asteroid
• DART
• ESA
• NASA
• space

The European Space Agency has officially joined NASA on a mission to bust near-Earth asteroids through the AIDA space mission.

Humanity-destroying space objects aren’t just out of 90’s action flicks…

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: Mercury Transiting the Sun in 4K

• mercury
• NASA
• the Sun

ICYMI, on Monday the planet Mercury made one of its rare appearances transiting the Sun.  It won’t do that again until 2032, and that one won’t be visible in the U.S.  It was super hard to see, but NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) had several special cameras filming it and on Wednesday they released a […]

• Cosmos

One Huge Thing: The Universe — How Big Is It?

• cosmology
• space
• universe

Scientists are calling it a “crisis in cosmology.”  According to a new study, which was published last month in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the universe is expanding faster than we thought.   Astrophysicists call the discovery the “most exciting development in cosmology in decades.” Researchers used a new technology at the Keck […]

• Cosmos

One Spooky Thing: NASA’s Halloween-Themed Celestial Images

• NASA
• space

  This spooky season is out of this world! The above image isn’t a jack-o-lantern but rather an image that NASA captured of our sun. According to NASA, the face is the result of active regions of the sun burning more brightly than others. And the image below, though it looks a bit like an eerie, […]

• Cosmos

One Shrinking Thing: The Ozone Hole

• CFC
• NASA
• ozone hole

Video: NASA We know you weren’t losing sleep over this (unlike say the climate crisis), but there is a bit of good news this week.  NOAA and NASA announced that the ozone hole measured its smallest size ever for this time of year — typically when it is its largest.  The hole, which exists above […]

• Cosmos

First All-Female Spacewalk FINALLY Happening (this morning!)

• ISS
• NASA
• space walk

Earlier this spring, NASA astronauts were set to conduct the first all-female spacewalk until a lack of properly-fitting space suits cut the historic moment short. Now, finally, the spacewalk has been rescheduled for this morning with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir as they set out to repair a faulty battery charger on the International Space Station.

• Cosmos

One Outer Space Thing: What Does Mars Sound Like?

• InSight
• Mars
• NASA
• quakes

In case you were wondering, there is sound on Mars, and thanks to NASA’s InSight mission we can now hear it.

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: Mars 2020 Rover Busts a Move

• Mars
• Mars rover
• NASA

The 2020 Mars rover was recently seen showing off its dance moves, is this so the rover can dance with Britney on the Red Planet? Turns out the “break dancing” is a way for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to test the rover’s balance. As Space.com explained, engineers need to know the rover’s center […]

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: Five of Jupiter’s Newly Discovered Moons Now Have Names

• Jupiter
• moon
• Zeus

Last summer, scientists discovered twelve new moons around the planet Jupiter, and they held a contest to name five of them.  Not just any old name would do, mind you.  The names had to meet certain requirement in order to be approved by the International Astronomical Union,  According to Space.com, ‘Jupiter’s moons are all named […]

• Cosmos

One Cool Thing: Catch the Perseid Meteor Shower

• meteor showr
• Perseid Meteor Shower
• stargazing
• stars

Early next week the Perseid meteor showers will hit their peak. According to the American Meteor Society, this year, the peak of the highly anticipated meteor shower falls on the night of Monday, Aug. 12, into the early morning hours of Tuesday, Aug. 13. As Accuweather explained the Perseids are most active after midnight through […]

• Cosmos

Two Cool Things: Videos of Apollo 11 Commemoration Events

• anniversary
• Apollo 11
• Guinness Book of World Records
• rockets
• Smithsonian
• Space Camp

We are still feeling the warm afterglow of the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 and thought both these videos captured its essence well.  The one above is from Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama which successfully launched nearly 5,000 model rockets at the exact moment Apollo 11 lifted off […]