How long would it take to get from Earth to the asteroid belt at light speed? How long did it take for the sun to form? How long did it take the Voyager to reach the Oort cloud? An object takes 45 years to orbit the Sun. What is its average distance (in AU)...
How fast does a Lunar Roving Vehicle travel? How much fuel per minute did the Saturn rocket consume? How fast was Sputnik and how long was its orbit? How fast is Comet ISON traveling? How fast is Halley's Comet traveling? How fast is the Hubble Space Telescope?
While NASA has sent two probes out past our heliosphere—Voyager 1 and 2—there’s still a lot we don’t know about the protective shield around the Solar System. A proposed Interstellar Probe Mission could send a spacecraft to investigate these long-standing mysteries, and a new study ana...
If NASA were to launch an interstellar probe powered by solar sails, it would take only eight years for it to catch the Voyager 1 spacecraft (the most distant spacecraft from Earth), which has been traveling for more than 20 years. By adding a laser or magnetic beam transmitter, NASA sa...
The Sun's influence extends well beyond the orbit of its planets, so we launched spacecraft like the Voyager 1 and 2 probes and NASA's various solar orbiters to study the Sun's effects on the rest of the solar system. Voyagers 1 and 2 are on a one-way trip, sent forth to study ...
SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.In retiring the space station, NASA is looking ahead to the next decade and well beyond, particularly human missions to the moon and Mars. The agency, for example, plans to return astronauts to the moon as ...
Cutting the Cord The most distant object we’ve sent out into the Universe is the Voyager 1 Space probe. Probe’s like Voyager update their position through radar and radio signals with Earth. You can actually track Voyager’s real-time location online.The location of the craft is tri...
I recount the shocking swiftness with which NASA lost the lessons of Challenger and paved the way for another accident with renewed schedule pressure and a belief that external tank foam shedding was “not a safety of flight issue.” Accidents jolt us into new awareness, but Columbia is a pai...
The speed of light is 3.00 x 10^8 m/s and the light coming from the Sun reaches Earth's surface in about 48.2 seconds. How far is Earth from the Sun? How fast is a light year? How long is a day on the moon? How long did it take the Voyager to reach the Oort c...
On August 16, 1977 -- just four days before the launch of the first Voyager probe -- Elvis Presley died at his home in Memphis; one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century was gone at the age of 42. How an Olympic image achieved immortalityA set of athletes at the...