Humans produce a lot of trash. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, for example, has accumulated plastic and other kinds of waste from all over the world’s oceans. While the problem of polluting the seas is fairly well known, another territory is also feeling the effects of human interference: space. It is estimated that there are […]
How to fix debris from taking up too much space — in space Read More »
The past ten years have seen an explosion of small-lift rocket companies. Ranging from 30 to 100 feet tall, these liquid-propellant rockets aim to launch up to two tons of payload — equivalent to the weight of a large car — into orbit. Instead of focusing on humans and large space telescopes, they’re launching smaller
A new space race is underway, and it’s explosive Read More »
It began with two members and one big dream: create a club that allows students to apply their engineering knowledge from class by building drones, planes, and rockets from scratch. Meet Northeastern’s Aerospace Club, or AeroNU. With 200 members nearly a decade later, the Redshift team at AeroNU is quite literally reaching for the sky
A turbulent flight to success: A tale of Northeastern’s very own aerospace club Read More »
Star-gazers are captivated by an astronomical phenomenon called a glitch. Glitches occur in neutron stars, which are remnants of a collapsed star and are the smallest stars in the universe. But don’t underestimate them: they are extremely dense, with just a teaspoon of their matter weighing around a hundred million tons on Earth! When neutron
Just before midnight in late July 2013, onlookers began lining the side of an interstate right outside of Chicago — many pulling out their smartphones to film. They watched as the flashing police lights leading the procession silently illuminated the suburb. The sea of reds and blues slowly faded into a sweeping gold. Following the
Late afternoon on Sunday, June 13, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center received an unlucky but increasingly familiar message: The Hubble Space Telescope entered safe mode. The telescope’s primary computer halted, likely because of degrading hardware. NASA’s inability to send astronauts on a servicing mission, due to the Space Shuttle’s retirement, severely limited the Goddard team’s
As Hubble falters, astrophysicists find hope in the telescope’s successor Read More »
We are all alone. Or are we? There is no definitive proof of alien life — at least any widely accepted proof — despite the vast number of planets that have orbited the stars of the Milky Way for billions of years. This is the quandary that the mathematician Enrico Fermi pondered in 1961. After
Where are they? The question of the Fermi Paradox Read More »
As the search for living entities in outer space continues, a team of researchers found that some bacteria may have the ability to survive amidst the harsh environment. Outer space is notorious for its inability to support living organisms. Extreme temperatures and low pressures prevent organisms from surviving. Additionally, ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun
Sticking together for life (quite literally)! Read More »
My generation may be the last to be able to gaze upon a star-studded sky. One night in early 2017, from the terrace of a relative’s home in a tiny village in India, I was astonished and delighted to see the sky packed with stars. Many glowed dimly but steadily. A handful of them had
Opinion: Stargazing will be redefined for future generations Read More »