NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a modified Boeing 747SP passenger liner built to carry a large telescope into the stratosphere to make infra-red observations of the cosmos.  By lifting the telescope high above air pollution and atmospheric water vapour, SOFIA can see in wavelengths which are not visible from the ground.  The ‘SP’ variant of the 747 was about 14 meters shorter than the regular model, which made it lighter and capable of longer transoceanic flights (This … Continue reading →

Construction on the International Space Station (ISS) has been ongoing since 1998, and is only scheduled for completion next year.  Meanwhile, as the last few sections get lifted into place, it is already big enough to appear as the brightest star in the sky when it shoots past overhead.  Here is a fantastic video recorded by the crew of a recent mission giving a guided tour of the interior of the station.  The fact that it takes a full six … Continue reading →

On 22 April Voyager 2 went wrong.  Since their launch in 1977, the Voyager twins have provided a non-stop 24/7 stream of data telemetry to the mission scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  But on the day of the fault, that stream of information suddenly became scrambled and unreadable.  Quick diagnostics showed that the probe was still working as designed, was still receiving and obeying instructions and still collecting data and transmitting it to Earth.  It was only one specific … Continue reading →