A milestone in the exploration of the planet Mercury will occur during the best evening opportunity to observe this planet during 2011. On March 17, the MESSENGER spacecraft will go where no spacecraft has gone before, into orbit around Mercury. It will then begin a year-long mission to help answer important questions about a planet [...]
The New Horizons spacecraft is on its way to Pluto. It left Earth back in January 2006. Now it is almost halfway between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. When will it reach Pluto? Not until July 2015. Why so long? Pluto is “out there.” How “out there” is it? A scale model can help.
This week’s Cosmic Quiz question comes from Daniel Wallace:
Why are astronauts aboard the International Space Station weightless while they are still so close to the Earth?
Great question!
Clark Planetarium is proudly powered by
WordPress
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).