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Cassini’s First Grand Finale Dive: Milestones Updated April 26, 2017 at 2 a.m. PDT Cassini has made its first dive between the rings and Saturn. It is not in contact with Earth at this time and is expected to regain contact via NASA’s Deep Space Network no earlier than around midnight PDT on April 26, 2017 (3 a.m. EDT on April 27, 2017).

The Prototype Lunar/Mars Greenhouse Project (PLMGP) is all about growing vegetables for astronauts during extended stays on the Moon, on Mars, or anywhere they can’t be resupplied from Earth. Beyond growing food, the Project aims to understand how food-growing systems can also be a part of life-support systems. ... he prototype itself is an inflatable, deployable system that researchers call a bioregenerative life support system. As crops are grown, the system recycles, water, recycles waste, and revitalizes the air. The system is hydroponic, so no soil is needed. Water that is either brought along on missions or gathered in situ—on...

It is claimed that the passages predict “everyone will flee” as “young men [are] left to pieces” A CONSPIRACY theorist has claimed that The Bible holds “hidden” passages which predict Spain will be destroyed by a giant tsunami. According to a ‘psychic’ who goes by the name T Chase, Cumbre Vieja on La Palma – not far from tourist hotspot Tenerife – will be hit first. It is claimed the devastation will be triggered when a volcano on the Canary Islands erupts, sparking huge tidal waves. North Africa would then be hit next, it is claimed. The passages which it...

SYRACUSE — Why have sightings of unidentified flying objects around the nation more than tripled since 2001? Why is July the busiest month for U.F.O. sightings? Why did they spike in Texas in 2008, or in New Mexico in September 2015? And how in the world, or out of it, has Manhattan racked up New York State’s second-highest tally of U.F.O. sightings in this century? These questions and many others emerge from the first comprehensive statistical summary of so-called close encounters: 121,036 eyewitness accounts, organized county by county in each state and the District of Columbia, from 2001 to 2015.

Earth-Sized Telescope Just Took The First-Ever Photo Of A Black Hole: How It Will Test Theory Of Relativity Ten nights of staunch observation may have led astronomers to successfully peer inside a black hole and take an image of its event horizon, or its point of no return. Einstein’s theory notes that all the information crossing a black hole’s event horizon gets lost forever. Yet according to quantum mechanics, information can never be lost. Despite the long wait and other external factors, the team remains optimistic. Falcke said that even if the images emerge as “crappy and washed out,” they...

MILES O’BRIEN: The balcony at Congressman John Culberson’s office on Capitol Hill offers a sweeping panorama of Washington, but the Republican from Houston is usually looking higher. REP. JOHN CULBERSON, R-Texas: There’s Mercury. Mars is going to appear right here. We go this way, there’s Orion. Sirius is going to appear right here. MILES O’BRIEN: Culberson has more than a hobby-level interest in space. He chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees NASA. In his ninth term, he is riding high, as the Trump administration embraces his strategy for exploring space. REP. JOHN CULBERSON: NASA has been underfunded for far...

Dark matter filaments bridge the space between galaxies in this false colour map. The locations of bright galaxies are shown by the white regions and the presence of a dark matter filament bridging the galaxies is shown in red. Credit: S. Epps & M. Hudson / University of Waterloo ================================================================================================================================ Researchers at the University of Waterloo have been able to capture the first composite image of a dark matter bridge that connects galaxies together. The scientists publish their work in a new paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The composite image, which combines a number of individual...

I've seen quite a few comments from people in SoCal and even AZ commenting on a bright flash, green, some also seeing a yellow tail. Any FReeper witnesses?

A relatively large asteroid will cross Earth's orbit around the sun this month. Astrophysicists and astronomers say there is no chance of a collision, but it will be the closest flyby of an asteroid that large for at least another 10 years. Asteroid 2014 JO25, discovered three years ago, is about 650 meters (2,100 feet) in diameter, 60 times as large as the small asteroid that plunged into our atmosphere as a meteor and exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013. That blast was felt thousands of kilometers away and caused havoc on the ground, damaging more than...

his giant world, which harbors nearly three times as much mass as all the other planets put together, attains opposition tonight (April 7), forming a straight line with Earth and the sun. Opposition also marks the point in a planet's orbit when it's closest to Earth; indeed, Jupiter is currently just 415 million miles (670 million kilometers) from Earth. Interestingly, for the first time in a dozen years, opposition comes when Jupiter is just past aphelion (the farthest point from the sun during planet's orbit, where Jupiter was on Feb. 16). This is therefore one of the most distant oppositions...

A relatively large near-Earth asteroid discovered nearly three years ago will fly safely past Earth on April 19 at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers), or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. Although there is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with our planet, this will be a very close approach for an asteroid of this size. The asteroid, known as 2014 JO25, was discovered in May 2014 by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona -- a project of NASA's NEO Observations Program in collaboration with the University...

If Avery Broderick’s wishes come true, the next 10 days will bring something new to humanity’s view of the universe. For the first time, the University of Waterloo physicist says, there could be “visceral, direct evidence that there are monsters in the night.” The monsters Dr. Broderick has in mind are supermassive black holes: terrifying giants that lurk in the hearts of galaxies, including our own, where they can devour stars and interstellar gas like cosmic vacuum cleaners. Fortunately, Earth is in no danger of encountering such a lethal entity. The nearest one is at least 25,000 light years away...

Lunar colonization isn’t mere science fiction anymore. Billionaires plan to send tourists on once-in-a-lifetime trips, and politicians say that they hope to colonize the Moon in the next few decades. There may even be ways for human colonists to harvest water from ice that may be permanently shadowed in certain caves. But where could a human colony actually live? The Moon has no atmosphere or magnetic field to shield it from solar radiation and micrometeorites that constantly rain onto its surface. That’s no environment for our squishy, earthling bodies. Scientists studying the Moon’s surface may have found the answer: shelter...

From ​the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)Sun’s impact on climate change quantified for first timeA solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory – click for much larger image For the first time, model calculations show a plausible way that fluctuations in solar activity could have a tangible impact on the climate. Studies funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation expect human-induced global warming to tail off slightly over the next few decades. A weaker sun could reduce temperatures by half a degree. There is human-induced climate change, and there are natural climate fluctuations. One important factor in the unchanging rise...

In case you haven't been paying attention, it has been a pretty exciting last few years for what astronomers call the "observable universe." It's been a particularly rewarding stretch for Albert Einstein too, even though he died in 1955. For instance, last year astrophysicists made the first observations of gravitational waves, which Einstein, exactly 100 years ago, predicted should exist. These waves, which I won't even try to explain, were observed when two black holes crashed into one another and merged. A black hole is formed from matter so dense, and with gravity so strong, that anything near it -...

The unnamed asteroid shares Jupiter's orbital space while moving in the opposite direction as the planet, which looks like a recipe for a collision, astronomers said. Yet somehow, the asteroid has managed to safely dodge Jupiter for at least tens of thousands of laps around the sun, a new study showed. It was given the provisional designation 2015 BZ509 with the nickname "BZ." Scientists noticed that the asteroid moves in the opposite direction of every planet and 99.99 percent of asteroids orbiting the sun, in a state known as retrograde motion. ... BZ may seem like a lucky asteroid, narrowly...

Uranus Smells Like FartsScientists have lots of questions about Uranus. Why does Uranus look the way it does, why did Uranus form the way it did, why does Uranus differ so much from other gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn? But I had a more important question. What does Uranus smell like? The question is actually harder to answer than it seems—it’s unlikely we’d ever be able to sniff Uranus. “It’s so cold that there’s not much” in the way of the compounds that we can smell, Jonathan Fortney, director of the Other Worlds Laboratory at the University of California,...

A New York architecture firm has unveiled designs for a skyscraper that is out of this world. Deemed the ‘world’s tallest building ever’, Analemma Tower will be suspended from an orbiting asteroid 31,068 miles (50,000 km) above the Earth– and the only way to leave is by parachute.

Radical skyscraper design from a New York City firm will be built from the sky down instead of the ground up Analemma Tower is set to be suspended from an orbiting asteroid 31,068 miles (50,000 km) above the Earth Tower will move in a figure eight pattern between the northern and southern hemispheres each day Solar panels will generate power and water will be collected from cloud condensation and rain water Building will be broken up into sections, such as business, worship, dining, shopping and entertainment A New York architecture firm has unveiled designs for a skyscraper that is out...

Enceladus’ south pole is wounded, bleeding heat and water. Its injury may have come from a huge rock smashing into this frigid moon of Saturn less than 100 million years ago, leaving the area riddled with leaky cracks. The region near Enceladus’ south pole marks one of the solar system’s most intriguing mysteries. It spews plumes of liquid from an interior ocean, plus an enormous amount of heat. The south pole’s heat emission is about 10 gigawatts higher than expected – equivalent to the power of 4000 wind turbines running at full capacity. The rest of the moon, though, is...