Finding the source of space weather with satellites

Space Daily posted this interesting tidbit yesterday. Researchers are using 8 different satellites to help figure out space weather. Yes, that is a thing and it can affect satellite operations. These researchers found a link for determining the source of space weather. This link was that the Earth’s magnetic field stores the energy of the […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 14—making it intelligible

I know—I promised to talk about the different colors on imagery birds (satellites) and in what applications in particular they’re used. But, someone pointed out to me that perhaps the past few lessons have been a little too space-nerd-tastic and maybe a little too difficult to understand. SO let me just try to make things […]

Sometimes it’s good to have a bulge–in space!

A few smart folks have found that the Earth’s bulge is beneficial to satellites orbiting it. In this article, they explain why a perfectly spherical Earth would’ve been bad for a lot of satellites, resulting in plenty of satellite carnage (satellites falling from orbit more quickly). But it turns out that our spinning, bulgy planet […]

Pictures of the Dragon

Sorry about that last quick post. I normally don’t monitor launches. But here’s some more information about SpaceX’s Dragon from Yahoo! News. Remember, this one has the newer engines which a lot of established players (Air Force, Lockheed, etc.) were worried about. Of course SpaceX did test these as best they could, but the real […]

If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?

Pleiades, of course–at least according to this news release from Astrium. An island appeared off of Pakistan’s coast a few days ago right after an earthquake, according to this ABC posting. There were all sorts of strange things associated with it, which are detailed in the article. Not quite strange in a Jules Verne kind […]