Free Republic

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A U.S. space probe was cleared for launch on Thursday to collect and return samples from an asteroid in hopes of learning more about the origins of life on Earth and perhaps elsewhere in the solar system, NASA said on Tuesday. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket was scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to dispatch the robot explorer Osiris-Rex on a seven-year mission. United Launch Alliance is a partnership of Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. Osiris-Rex is headed to a 1,640-foot (500-meter) wide asteroid named Bennu, which circles the...

Act Two of the 12-year-old New Horizons mission to Pluto and the solar system’s icy Kuiper Belt is heating up, with less than a month to go before NASA’s piano-sized spacecraft makes history’s farthest-out close encounter with a celestial object. The New Year’s flyby of a mysterious Kuiper Belt object (or objects) known as Ultima Thule (UL-ti-ma THOO-lee) follows up on the mission’s first act, which hit a climax three years ago with a history-making flyby of Pluto. Launched in 2006, New Horizons was never meant to be a one-shot deal. Even before the Pluto flyby, mission managers used the...

If human-induced climate change continues unchecked, 10 percent of the U.S. economy could evaporate by 2100, a 1,656-page federal report the White House slipped out on Black Friday (Nov. 23) warned — but a nearby world has an even hotter climate problem than ours, and scientists say we could learn some valuable lessons from it. That world is Venus, Earth's "evil twin," which was once nice enough — until something went wrong and the atmosphere began trapping a little too much heat. Scientists aren't positive precisely how events played out, but the runaway greenhouse effect that resulted is beyond debate:...

A simple molecule in the atmosphere that acts as a "detergent" to breakdown methane and other greenhouse gases has been found to recycle itself to maintain a steady global presence in the face of rising emissions, according to new NASA research. Understanding its role in the atmosphere is critical for determining the lifetime of methane, a powerful contributor to climate change. The hydroxyl (OH) radical, a molecule made up of one hydrogen atom, one oxygen atom with a free (or unpaired) electron is one of the most reactive gases in the atmosphere and regularly breaks down other gases, effectively ending...

Neil deGrasse Tyson faked a Bush quote and belatedly apologized for it after the resulting controversy spilled into the Washington Post. But true to Tysonism, his apology consisted of various empty profundities and self-promotion climaxing in… I will still mention Islamic Extremists flying planes into buildings in the 21st century. I will still contrast it with the Golden Age of Islam a millennium earlier. And I will still mention the President’s quote. But instead, I will be the one contrasting what actually happened in the world with what the Bible says: The Arabs named the stars, not God. Tyson is...

Gravity is big and weird and difficult to study. It moves through space as a wave, sort of like how light does. But these waves are subtle and difficult to detect. They occur in measurable amounts only after massive events, like the collision of black holes. Humanity didn't spot its first gravitational wave until 2015. Then, in 2017, astronomers for the first time detected both gravitational waves and light from a single event: a neutron star collision. Now, researchers are using data from that event to confirm some basic facts about the universe. In a paper first uploaded Nov. 1...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Fossils of a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur have been found in slabs of Utah sandstone that were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains, scientists said Tuesday. The bones found at Dinosaur National Monument belonged to a type of sauropod—long-necked plant-eaters that were said to be the largest animal ever to roam land. The discovery included two complete skulls from other types of sauropods—an extremely rare find, scientists said.

The Flat Earth International Conference has come to Denver. The flat-earthers come to discuss their beliefs with each other and debate the ideas of a flat versus round Earth. People not so sure the Earth is round have come from around the globe to Denver this week to discuss their beliefs at the Flat Earth International Conference, hosted at the Crowne Plaza Denver Airport Convention Center. The two-day conference began on Thursday and ends Friday. Self-described "flat-earthers" believe the Earth's shape has not been proven using the scientific method. "Scientifically when you go and try to prove the curvature, or...

Video courtesy of NASA. NASA’s InSight spacecraft is close to making its historic touchdown on Mars after an epic journey of just over 300 million miles.

NASA Live: Watch InSight Mars Landing Online NASA's InSight lander is scheduled to touch down on Mars at approximately 3 p.m. EST, Monday, Nov. 26. NASA TV live coverage of the InSight Mars landing will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. UTC). Follow @NASA and @NASAInSight for #MarsLanding news. See a list or an interactive timeline of landing milestones. News briefings and launch commentary will be streamed on NASA TV, YouTube.com/NASAJPL/live and Ustream.tv/NASAJPL. Monday, Nov. 26, 2 p.m. Eastern: NASA TV live coverage of InSight mission landing on Mars. Live landing commentary runs from 2-3:30 p.m. The Entry, Descent...

InSight in Position for Mars Landing November 26 at 10:30 AM PT Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have completed the final adjustments for landing NASA's InSight spacecraft on Mars. Atmospheric entry is expected around 11:47 a.m. PST (2:47 p.m. EST) and touchdown, about seven minutes later.

Which of this generation's biggest tech luminaries and innovators will ultimately be remembered for having the greatest lasting effect on the world? It's a tough question, especially when you consider the role that people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg play in our everyday lives. But, if you ask renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the answer is simple: Elon Musk. "As important as Steve Jobs was, no doubt about it — [and] you have to add him to Bill Gates, because they birthed the personal computing revolution kind of together — here's the difference: Elon Musk is trying...

Friday, 20 December, 2002, 01:57 GMT Moon's youngest crater discovered Is this the youngest crater on the Moon? By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Astronomers have discovered the only known lunar crater to have been formed in recorded history. In 1953 a flash was seen on the Moon that was taken to be the impact of a small asteroid. But ground-based telescopes were not powerful enough to see any crater. But now, searching more detailed images of the Moon obtained by orbiting spacecraft, researchers have found a small, fresh, crater in the same position as the flash....

On April 14th, 1970, a new crater was carved into the surface of the Moon: How do we know it’s new? Because we made it. That’s the impact scar of the third stage of the Saturn V rocket (technically designated S-IVB) that carried Apollo 13 to — but sadly, not on — the Moon. Earlier missions had placed seismic instruments on the lunar surface to measure if the Moon had any activity. They found it did, and in fact several moonquakes were big enough that had you been standing there, you would have felt them quite strongly (and probably been...

“Name a Natural Explanation Later Replaced by a Supernatural Explanation” By Philip Cottraux I see this one pop up on Twitter from time to time, followed by atheists bragging that they’ve never met a theist who can answer it. Unfortunately, I’ve been unsuccessful tracking down its origin. In some tweets I’ve seen it connected with Sam Harris, but sifting through countless quotes as well as his book The End of Faith (this was a torturous experience) turned up nothing. Like most atheist “gotchas,” this one is riddled with false presumptions. I can already hear skeptics getting to the end of...

The end is near, we’re all going to die. Unless, that is, we empower government to control more of the economy and our lives. It’s a standard trick of the left – predict doom and gloom in the future in an attempt to scare the Hell out of people while promising to avoid it if we let them get their way. While this could apply to nearly anything Democrats are pushing on any given day, this week it’s about global cooling. I mean, global warming. Er, scratch that, climate change…for now, at least.The government issued another climate report on Friday,...

At around 12.14 in the afternoon, it will come as close as 15 lunar distances, which is 15-times the distance from the Earth to the Moon (or about 3.7 million miles). TWO asteroids are set to drift uncomfortably close to the Earth on Sunday, with the pair of objects passing the planet within five hours of each other. The largest of the asteroids is estimated to have a diameter as long as 120 metres, making it bigger than most football pitches. What's exciting this time around, however, is that the largest (sexily named "2009 WB105") has an estimated diameter of...

Credit: NASA/Viking 1 Orbiter Apr 03, 2008Fantastic Phobos Conventional theory states that Phobos has been marred by repeated meteor impacts, but could electricity have played a significant role? Phobos is the largest of the two moons of Mars. Deimos is so small that studying its surface has been problematic for astronomers because it cannot be readily observed from Earth. Only the Viking 2 orbiter captured close up images. Phobos, on the other hand, has been examined by Earth stations and by satellites sent to Mars orbit. In the image above, Stickney crater is visible - a ten kilometer-wide excavation that...

Phobos’ grooves, which are visible across most of the moon’s surface, were first glimpsed in the 1970s by NASA’s Mariner and Viking missions.Over the years, there has been no shortage of explanations put forward for how they formed.Some planetary researchers have posited that large impacts on Mars have showered the nearby moon with groove-carving debris. Others think that Mars’ gravity is slowly tearing Phobos apart, and the grooves are signs of structural failure.Still other scientists have made the case that there’s a connection between the grooves and the impact that created a large crater called Stickney.In the 1970s, University of...

One of the most striking features we see on images of Phobos is the parallel sets of grooves on the moon’s surface. They were originally thought to be fractures caused by an impact long ago. But scientists now say the grooves are early signs of the structural failure that will ultimately destroy this moon. "We think that Phobos has already started to fail, and the first sign of this failure is the production of these grooves," said Terry Hurford, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. ... Mars' gravity is pulling in Phobos closer by about 2 meters (6.6 feet) every...