The average distance between the Sun and the Earth - 149,597,870.7 km (or 92,955,807 mi) - is known as an Astronomical Unit (AU).
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SPACE VIEW PARK/KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - This afternoons (Mar. 27) successful hotfire test of a recycled Falcon 9 booster at the Kennedy Space Center sets SpaceX on course for a rendezvous with history involving the first ever relaunch of a 'Flight-Proven' rocket later this week.
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Located in the direction of the northern Auriga constellation, some light 4,200 years from Earth, is the open star cluster known as the Starfish cluster (aka. Messier 38)
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Engineers carried out a critical hot fire engine test firing with the first new engine controlling 'brain' that will command the shuttle-era liquid fueled engines powering the inaugural mission of NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket.
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There are so many cool astronomical sights to see in late March including Mercury and a brand new comet!
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Europa is fine and all, but where we really need to go is Saturn's moon Titan. Let's look at some cool ideas for probes to fully explore this world.
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Juno will perform its 5th flyby of Jupiter, Monday, March 27, at 1:52 a.m. PDT. Prepare yourself for some fantastic images.
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CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL - The second round of March Launch Madness continued with the thunderous nighttime blastoff of a ULA Delta IV rocket powering a super swift military communications satellite to orbit in a collaborative effort of U.S. Allies from North America, Europe and Asia and the U.S. Air Force.
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Watch several dozen stars in the center of our galaxy circle a massive, black "nothing."
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A new study released by a team of international scientists has offered another explanation for Recurring Slope Lineae on Mars, one which doesn't rely on the existence of water.
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Synlight, the world's largest artificial Sun, will help German researchers extract hydrogen fuel from water using solar energy.
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Images presented at the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference this week showed the first indication of gravity waves around the Martian equator.
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - The fierce competition for lucrative launch contracts from the U.S. Air Force just got more even intense with the announcement that SpaceX outbid arch rival United Launch Alliance (ULA) to launch an advanced military Global Positioning System (GPS III) navigation satellite to orbit in approx. 2 years.
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If the results in a new study are accepted, the dinosaur family tree will be getting overhauled.
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A routine check by the Curiosity science team revealed that breaks have formed in the rover's left middle wheel since they last checked in January of 2017.
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You'd think Saturn has all the luck, with its awesome rings. But it turns out, living on a planet with rings has consequences, like an impending global apocalypse.
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SpaceX and NASA have identified 4 possible locations for the first Dragon journey to Mars in 2020.
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Recently-released images from the Rosetta space probe show how the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko changes over time
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Researchers from the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb) have announced the discovery of five new particles, which could shed light on what holds atoms together.
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Professor Stephen Hawking has been offered, and has accepted, a trip into sub-orbital space on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Spacecraft.
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The latest numbers released by the ESA's Space Debris Office indicate that the cloud of orbital debris is getting worse.
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - SpaceX's tenth contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station came to a safe conclusion with a splashdown of the Dragon spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean Sunday and successfully returned a treasure trove of more than two tons of precious science experiments and research samples from the space station.
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Uranus was named in honor of the father of Cronos in Greek mythology, befitting its place in the Solar System beyond Saturn and Jupiter.
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Miss out on comet 45P Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková? Is Comet 2P Encke too low in the dawn sky for your current latitude? (links) Well the Universe is providing us northerners with another shot at a fine binocular comet, as 41P Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák glides through Ursa Major this week.
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CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL - On the 70th anniversary year commemorating the United States Air Force, a ULA Delta IV rocket put on a daunting display of nighttime rocket fire power shortly after sunset Saturday, March 19 - powering a high speed military communications satellite to orbit that will significantly enhance the targeting firepower of forces in the field; and was funded in collaboration with America's strategic allies.
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The Hubble has looked inside the Orion Nebula to witness a family of stars breaking up.
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If a new definition of planet is adopted by the International Astronomical Union, our Solar System could be home to more than 110 planets.
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CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL - As sunset dawns on the venerable Delta rocket program, the sole Delta slated to launch from the Cape this year is set to dazzle at sunset tonight, Saturday, March 18.
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Join Fraser Cain at Forbidden Brewing to talk about the TRAPPIST 1 system.
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NASA's ground breaking twins study is in the all-important integration phase.
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The Cassini probe recently snapped its last up-close imagines of Saturn's moon Mimas, which were used to create some impressive mosaic pictures of its pockmarked surface.
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The private aerospace company Zero2Infinity reached a milestone this month with the successful test of their Bloostar launch system.
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - Under stellar moonlit Florida skies, a private SpaceX Falcon 9 took flight overnight and flawlessly delivered the commercial EchoStar 23 television satellite to geosynchronous orbit after high winds delayed the rockets roar to orbit by two days from Tuesday. Breaking News: Check back for updates
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The Russian federal space agency (Roscosmos) has announced that it is seeking new recruits to become the next-generation of cosmonauts.
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In addition to be the second closet planet to our Sun, Venus also has the most circular orbit - varying between 0.718 to 0728 AUs from the Sun.
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - High winds halted SpaceX's early morning attempt to launch a legless Falcon 9 rocket and the EchoStar XXIII commercial communications satellite soon after midnight Tuesday, Mar. 14, from the Florida Space Coast amidst on and off rain showers and heavy cloud cover crisscrossing central Florida all afternoon Monday, Mar. 13 and into the overnight hours.
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NASA recently announced the release of raw, uncalibrated data of the TRAPPIST-1 star system, which was collected by the Kepler K2 mission,
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Canada's spaceport will be built by Maritime Launch Services near Canso, Nova Scotia.
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017 has set aside funding for NASA's proposed mission to Mars for the coming year.
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With so much attention on Mars, it's easy to forget there's a whole other Earth-sized planet nearby, worthy of exploration: Venus. And the Soviets worked really hard to tell us what it's like down on the surface of Venus with their Venera program.
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Nanosatellites and CubeSats may change the face of space exploration.
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A recent presentation made at the NASA Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop outlined how the study of magnetic fields could play a pivotal role in the exploration of our Solar System and beyond.
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