Carnival of Space #448

Real quick because the Everyday Spacer team is on the move! Literally, we’re moving.

If you have a space relate blog, you might like the Carnival too. Visit that page to learn more.

On With The Show!

NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly Returns from a Historic Year in Space on Station
Ken Kremer | Universe Today

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly and his Russian cohort Mikhail Kornienko successful returned to Earth late Tuesday night (March 1), after spending nearly a year in space aboard the space station on a mission to gauge the limits of human endurance in microgravity and blaze a path forward to eventual human expeditions to…

NASA’s New X-Plane Program to Bring Quiet Supersonic Flight
Evan Gough | Universe Today

NASA has plans to develop new supersonic passenger aircraft that are not only quieter, but also greener and less expensive to operate. If NASA’s 2017 budget is approved, the agency will re-start their X-Plane program, the same program which was responsible for the first supersonic flight almost 70 years ago. And if all goes according to plan, the first test-model could be flying as soon as 2020.

New photographs taken by New Horizons reveals huge icy canyons in the north pole of Pluto. The article is written in Spanish.
Enormes cañones helados en Plutón
Fran Sevilla | Vega 0.0

Y la misión New Horizons de la NASA aún continúa sorprendiéndonos con las imágenes del sobrevuelo del planeta enano Plutón. En esta ocasión podemos ver grandes cañones helados en el polo norte de Plutón, en una región conocida como Lowell Regio. El mayor de ellos, en amarillo en la imagen inferior, tiene 75 kilómetros de ancho y pasa muy cerca del…

Imaging The Jewel Box
Allen Versfeld | Urban Astronomer

The Urban Astronomer has been trying to improve his astrophotography skills, and this is the latest blog entry showing how his work is getting closer to meeting his own standards, and describes what he’s learned so far.

Periodic Comet P/2016 BA14 (PANSTARRS)
Peter Lake | AstroSwanny’s AArtscope Blog

Astroswanny is intrigued by the potential back story of newly discovered periodic comet P/2016 BA14 (PANSTARRS). Latest image shows the barest hint of a dusty trailing edge. The comet will pass at 9 lunar distances on March 24th the 3rd closest approach for any comet on record.

Opportunity Rover Begins ‘Mountain Climbing’ Up Steep Ridge at Endeavour Crater
Paul Scott Anderson | Planetaria

NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars may have been stealing the spotlight in recent years, but the other rover, Opportunity, is still going strong after 12 long years. Opportunity has survived the harsh environment and various challenges for much longer than anyone anticipated, and now is taking on a new task: climbing slopes as steep as 30 degrees while searching for deposits of clay minerals which had already been detected by orbiting spacecraft. The region where Opportunity landed, Meridiani Planum, is mostly flat plains, but now on the rugged edge of the huge Endeavour crater, the rover is becoming…

A Look at the Gorgeous Horsehead and Flame Nebula
Zain Husain | Brown Spaceman

Estimated 1,500 light years away from planet Earth, lies a tale of two nebulae dancing in the cosmos. We’ll start with one of the most famous nebulae in astronomy: the Horsehead Nebula.

This gorgeous nebula is a dark nebula in the constellation Orion. The red emission nebula behind it acts like a gorgeous cosmic backdrop to show the curves and structure of this hydrogen gas beast. The head itself is about…

Unravelling the Mysteries of the Vela Supernova Remnant
Zain Husain | Brown Spaceman

If there’s one thing I can’t get enough of it’s the gorgeous supernovae remnant photos. The cosmos sculpts magnificent scenes from hundreds or hundred of thousands light years away from Earth.

The beautiful image you see here is our friend called the Vela Supernova Remnant, located 800 light years away from Earth. This remnant exploded about 11,000 – 12,300 years ago. To give you some context 11,000 years ago on Earth was the emergence of…

Taking a Look at the Peculiar Jovian Moon Callisto
Zain Husain | Brown Spaceman

Imagine a moon where your typical view is the gargantuan planet Jupiter. It never seems to move across the sky and just stares right back at you. This is probably a typical view from most of the moons around Jupiter but there is one that separates itself from the rest; enter Callisto.

Quick Facts About Callisto
Discovered in 1610 by…

Back in Time
Ryan Marciniak | The Solstice Blog

Astronomers have looked further out into space than ever before, and further back in time as well. How does that work? Come see the new look of the Solstice Blog in the process.

A New Look at the Ancient History of Mars
CC Petersen | TheSpacewriter’s Ramblings

Staying on the topic of Mars this week, there’s a look at a new way of looking at the Red Planet’s ancient past. We all know that Mars’s history has been an enigma for scientist, even as they learn more about it through robotic explorations. Still, after more than 50 years of space missions to Mars, we have questions. Where’s the water? Where WAS the water? When did it flow? What made it flow? Was there a cataclysmic event that changed the face of the planet forever? As it turns out, maybe there’s an idea that…

Searching for Ice-bound Life on Earth
Carolyn Collins Petersen | About.com

Searching for life under the ice on Earth… and elsewhere.

The more we find life in what we think of as “weird” conditions on our planet, the more we have to expand our definitions of “habitable” to include those places. And, that opens scientists up to…

That’s it! Watch for Carnival of Space #449 over at Zain’s beautiful blog: Brown Spaceman next week!