discover the wonders of space

[...]... by Helmut Lammer of the Space Research Institute (IWF) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Significantly larger than our planet, super-Earths are envisioned to be made of a high level of rock but, according to Lammer, there is another feature at play – an atmospheric casing of hydrogen-rich gas Looking at the impact of radiation on the upper atmospheres of the super-Earths orbiting the stars Kepler-11,... founded SpaceX in June 2002, pumping $100m (£64m) of his own money into the company The ultimate goal of SpaceX is to reduce the cost of going to space and to take humans to new frontiers, specifically landing people on Mars in the next 10-20 years www.spaceanswers.com SpaceX In a sense Musk has been fortunate that, around the time SpaceX was founded, NASA shifted its focus to the commercialisation of space. .. Delta IV SpaceX is also considering building a 1 Testing of the manned prototype of the Dragon spacecraft, which will be able to carry seven people 2 Engineers work on a Dragon spacecraft in the SpaceX factory 3 SpaceX’s headquarters at 1 Rocket Road, California, USA Decade of the Dragon On 8 October 2012, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule lifted off on its first scheduled cargo mission to the International Space. .. routine, the ETX80 will automatically find and track Solar System and Deep Sky objects with ease – displaying the best the night sky can offer at the simple push of a button! With the Meade ETX80 you can see the Rings of Saturn, the moons and equatorial cloud belts of Jupiter, the craters and mountains of the Moon and many of the major Star Clusters, Galaxies and Nebulae Now available in two versions: The. .. per cent of such stars host worlds smaller than Neptune The actual temperature of a planet depends on the specific properties of the planet’s atmosphere and the amount of light that the planet’s surface reflects into space, ” says Dressing “We can estimate a range of probable surface temperatures by considering several different assumptions about the composition of the planet’s atmosphere and the reflectivity... on the success of SpaceX Many other bodies have been impressed by the meteoric rise of the company, and SpaceX has been keen to get involved The United States Air Force has bought a number of contracts for flights from SpaceX, as has global satellite operator SES SA, while SpaceX has also been contracted to launch a number of Iridium satellites (used for global communications) Meanwhile, other SpaceX... crashing the internet, knocking out global Solar wind current 1 Surface of the Sun The Sun’s magnetic field is very complex on the solar surface, but as it rises into the corona it simplifies until it consists of two opposite polarities separated by the line of the heliospheric current sheet 2 Corona In the corona the solar wind begins to draw out the heliospheric current sheet into space, extending the. .. Falcon family of rockets and the amazing Dragon spacecraft, it is doing things that no other private company has been able to match And it is planning to do even more in the coming years that will cement its place as one of the world’s most innovative companies, space- related or otherwise, that will change the way we access space forever In May 2012, the world watched in awe as SpaceX became the first... magnetic fields The flares release as much as a sixth of the total amount of energy that the Sun releases every second, with much of it in X-rays or ultraviolet light The energy of a flare can drive a cloud of charged particles to escape the solar corona in a coronal mass ejection (CME) The CME becomes a giant cloud of plasma hurtling through space and, when CMEs are pointed towards Earth, they cause solar... dust particles from the ground, adding to the atmospheric dust content and increasing heating, pushing the winds harder and faster until the atmosphere is filled by dust And then, just as quickly, the storm can die down Perhaps by blocking the sunlight, the surface of Mars grows cooler, allowing some of the dust to begin sinking out of the atmosphere Not all dust storms swallow the entire planet – . magnetic field lines down to the poles where they excite molecules in the atmosphere, causing them to glow as the northern and southern lights. Magnetotail The pressure of the solar wind sculpts. With the Meade ETX80 you can see the Rings of Saturn, the moons and equatorial cloud belts of Jupiter, the craters and mountains of the Moon and many of the major Star Clusters, Galaxies and. WEATHER IN SPACE MEGA STORMS From solar flares that knock out satellites to 1,500mph hurricanes on the surface of alien worlds, All About Space explores some of the most extreme weather in the