Lifeboat Foundation

This year, they will also select a third group of astronauts, comprising 10 to 12 people, two of which will be women (it’s unclear if these have already been selected).

These astronauts will travel to the CSS for three to six months to perform scientific research. They will have more of a science background than previous Chinese astronauts, known as taikonauts.

China has sent 11 taikonauts to space so far, with the most recent coming last October on their Shenzhou-11 mission.

Continue reading “China Says It Is Preparing For A Manned Lunar Landing” »

Visiting Mars might just kill you.

It might seem like an idea taken straight out of science fiction, but a ‘space nation’ could soon become a reality.

The ambitious plans, first announced last year, were hatched by an international group of scientists and are backed by a Russian billionaire.

Continue reading “First Space Nation” »

A story on why we might one day become an extragalactic solar system. From the archives.

Why Earth and the rest of our solar system may eventually become an intergalactic solar system.

June 6 (UPI) — Our galaxy and its neighbors exist in a sort of cosmic void, research suggests. The latest analysis supports the conclusion of a 2013 study which showed the Milky Way exists in a region of the universe sparsely populated by galaxies, stars and planets.

The new research — presented this week at the annual American Astronomical Society meeting — also helps bridge the divide between astronomers torn by competing measurements of the Hubble Constant, the rate at which the universe is expanding.

Different groups of astronomers have developed different techniques for measuring the Hubble Constant, with each method yielding different numbers.

Continue reading “Our galaxy exists in a cosmic void, study shows” »

What’s wrong with this illustration of the planets in our solar system? »

For one thing, it suggests that the planets line up for photos on the same solar ray, just like baby ducks in a row. That’s a pretty rare occurrence—perhaps once in several billion years. In fact, Pluto doesn’t even orbit on the same plane as the planets. Its orbit is tilted 17 degrees. So, forget it lining up with anything, except on rare occasions, when it crosses the equatorial plane. On that day, you might get it to line up with one or two planets.

But what about scale? Space is so vast. Perhaps our solar system looks like this ↓

No such luck! Stars and planets do not fill a significant volume of the void. They are lonely specs in the great enveloping cosmic dark.* Space is mostly filled with—well—space! Lots and lots of it. In fact, if Pluto and our own moon were represented by just a single pixel on your computer screen, you wouldn’t see anything around it. Even if you daisy chain a few hundred computer screens, you will not discern the outer planets. They are just too far away.

Continue reading “Solar System Map: Surprisingly deceptive” »

Watch the moment India’s space program made a massive breakthrough.

Researchers have discovered an exoplanet that burns at a temperature of several thousand degrees.

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