Score one more for Einstein. A new study has confirmed his theory of general relativity works on extremely large scales. Physics - General relativity - Relativity - Einstein - History

A Chinese proverb says women hold up half the sky. In the future, they'll be doing it from space. Chinese space program - Space - Technology - Astronaut - Missions

American physicist Sally Ride achieved lasting fame in June 1983 when she became the first American woman to travel in space as a crew member of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Space Shuttle Challenger - Space - Technology - Space Shuttle - Sally Ride

The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft — the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years — is scheduled to take place later in March. Air force - Military - Boeing X-51 - Hypersonic - United States

After a decade of mystery, astronomers have now shown that a pair of white dwarf stars spin around each other in just 5.4 minutes, making them the fastest-orbiting and tightest binary star system ever found, the researchers claim. Star - Binary star - White dwarf - Astronomy - Supernova

NASA Shuttle program manager John Shannon said on Tuesday (Mar 9) that the Space Shuttle Program can indeed be safely extended beyond the existing plan to retire the fleet after completing the four missions currently remaining to fly by the end of 2010. The key issue now is money not safety. “Where the [...]

I've now posted the answer in the original post. Check back next week for another Universe Puzzle!© Jean Tate for Universe Today, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.usPost tags:Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Representing what may be the first long term lunar environmental impact study, recent laser ranging data from the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico suggests the Lunar Ranging Retro Reflectors (LRRRs) left on the Moon by Apollo missions 11, 14 and 15 are beginning to shows signs of age.(...)Read the rest of It’s Not Just The [...]

Scientists have found evidence of a catastrophic event they believe was responsible for halting the birth of stars in a galaxy in the early Universe. According to their findings, just 3 billion years after the Big Bang, a massive galaxy exploded in a series of blasts trillions of times more powerful than any caused by [...]

Updated at 9:40 EST Tuesday: SpaceX just released the official word on what happened with Tuesday's 3.5 second test-fire of the Falcon 9 rocket. The test aborted immediately after it started, and a a spin start system failure forced the early shutdown. The Falcon 9 sits on Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral [...]

Step right up — you can now get your very own jetpack. That's right, a real, not-science-fiction-honest-to-goodness jetpack. New Zealander Glenn Martin has been working on perfecting his jetpack for 30 years, and in 1998 created the Martin Aircraft Company to develop and market his idea. Now, the jetpack has become a [...]

This week's Carnival of Space is hosted by Ian O'Neill over at Discovery News/Space, (and formerly of Universe Today!) who has given the Carnival the "Red Carpet" treatment. Click here to read the Carnival of Space #144. And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If [...]

Images of Mars taken from orbit show a massive system of riverbeds and canyons etched by water. Or maybe not. A new study of one channel shows that it was formed by lava flow and not water, and the results make "a strong case that fluid lava can produce channels that look [...]

President Obama will travel to Florida to unveil an "ambitious plan for NASA that sets the agency on a reinvigorated path of space exploration," according to a press release from the White House. The President will host a conference on April 15, inviting space officials and leaders to discuss the new budget and plan [...]

As with last week's Universe Puzzle, something that cannot be answered by five minutes spent googling, a puzzle that requires you to cudgel your brains a bit, and do some lateral thinking. This is a puzzle on a "Universal" topic – astronomy and astronomers; space, satellites, missions, and astronauts; planets, moons, telescopes, and so on. What's [...]