space

The Sun missed an important story about plans by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to explore Titan, Saturn's largest moon, using a drone.

On its surface, the mission seemed like a marriage of Apollo 8 and 9. It was a return to the moon as in Apollo 8, but this time with a LM. And while Apollo 9 tested the lunar module in Earth orbit, Apollo 10 would haul it off to the moon.

Astronomers have long held the keys to the kingdom of precision time-keeping. There are numerous types of telescopes with each having its advantages and disadvantages.

Emanuel A. “Emil” Skrabek, a Baltimore-born spacecraft engineer who co-invented a thermoelectric material that powered the Mars Curiosity Rover and other space probes, died of progressive supranuclear palsy and Parkinson’s disease at his home in Lutherville on March 14, his family said. He was 85.

By Colin Campbell

Mar 24, 2019

Who received thumbs up from the Carroll County Times this week?

50 years later, other nations are still trying to catch up to where America was back then. Some of them have gotten off the ground.

Two eggs, one meter of duct tape, six McDonald’s straws, 50 grams of paper and some aluminum foil were all Francis Scott Key High School Senior Maddie Rohde and her fellow students had to protect two eggs from breaking during a four-meter drop from the Liberty High School cafeteria mezzanine.

The alleged Mars rover's final gasp, 'My battery is low and it's getting dark,' may be mostly fiction but wouldn't it be great if some alternative facts could get a pass?

DART is NASA’s first mission not to explore space, but to defend against it. Researchers at Johns Hopkins plan to launch a spacecraft and smash it into an asteroid. BOOM! The impact, they hope, will bump the big space rock off course.

By Tim Prudente

Feb 4, 2019

Scientists from NASA 's New Horizons mission on Tuesday released the first stitched together animation of Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever explored by humans.

The only total lunar eclipse for 2019 will be visible from the continental United States, including Maryland, on the night of Sunday-Monday, Jan. 20-21.

Ultima Thule, the distant object NASA's New Horizons spacecraft explored on New Year's Day, is actually a pair of spheres that have been fused together by gravity, scientists revealed Wednesday. The Johns Hopkins-led mission could already be helping to confirm theories about how the planets formed.

By Scott Dance

Jan 2, 2019

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft successfully captured images and data as it flew past an object nicknamed Ultima Thule early Tuesday morning, scientists confirmed. But they won't get their first close-up glimpse of the edge of the solar system until Wednesday afternoon.

By Scott Dance

Jan 1, 2019

The highlights of 2019 for stargazers include a total lunar eclipse some are calling a “Super Blood Wolf Moon” and a transit of Mercury. And there are plenty of sights to spot in the heavens in between.

By Scott Dance

Jan 1, 2019

Three and a half years after exploring Pluto, the New Horizons mission will reach another new frontier in the first hours of 2019. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory-led mission will fly past a Kuiper Belt object known as Ultima Thule, a pristine remnant of the early universe.

By Scott Dance

Dec 24, 2018

Wirtanen’s perihelion distance is only 8 percent greater than Earth’s average distance from the sun. This month, Earth and comet will experience a close encounter. This occurs on the morning of Dec. 16 when the comet is only 7.2 million miles from Earth.

In a far-ranging talk Wednesday on space, physics and the origin of all that is, Nobel Prize-winning scientist John Mather went from the very old and incredible small, to the infinite, and nearly back again.

The Westminster Astronomical Society will be hosting a special guest at its Oct. 10 club meeting — John Mather, a senior astrophysicist at the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and senior project scientist for NASA’s James Webb space telescope.

In addition to educating the group about the sun, Young — associate director for science in NASA’s Heliophysics Science Division — said NASA is also going to work on a future partnership with CCPL in efforts to get involved with Maryland libraries.

Last month NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe, its second deep space mission in 2018. (The other was Insight, destined for a November landing on Mars.)  Parker is different from other solar missions of the past that observed the sun from far off. Parker will get up close and personal.

What we know about David Katz, the Baltimore man behind a mass shooting at a Florida game video tournament Sunday.

By Christina Tkacik

Aug 27, 2018

David Katz, who police said fatally shot two others before killing himself at a Madden tournament in Jacksonville, Fla., had been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment and struggled at the University of Maryland.

Scores of Johns Hopkins University scientists watched as a NASA spacecraft zoomed toward the sun Sunday on an unprecedented quest to get closer to our star than anything ever sent before.

The Perseid meteor shower will be at its peak volume this weekend and visible to the naked eye, making this the best time all year to catch shooting stars.

Friday night's game between the Las Vegas Aces and the Washington Mystics at Capital One Arena was canceled, the WNBA announced.

Do you remember the future when you were a kid? The one that couldn’t come soon enough? We looked forward to the next space flight, the next scientific discovery. We heard about meals instantly cooked by sound waves, TV wrist watches, robots that vacuumed the floor, cars that steered themselves.

In 1958, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. Orioles pitcher Billy O'Dell (above center) secured the American

Charles A. Harper, a chemical engineer who worked on projects for NASA, died from complications of pneumonia Feb. 26 at Brightview Mays Chapel Ridge retirement community.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Mar 4, 2018

The light-year is a unit of measurement for distance equivalent to the span traveled by light in one year in a vacuum. If an object is 20 light-years away, then the light from it we are seeing left that object 20 years ago during which time it rapidly traveled through space before meeting our eyes.

Harford County Council President Richard Slutzky disputes public consensus that humans are responsible for climate change, citing his research of scientists that have expressed skepticism on the subject.

In this summary of fake news in astronomy, The New York Times published two erroneous facts (blue moon and blood moon) and one imprecise definition (supermoon) in a single article.

Mortimer Adler, the philosopher and chairman of Encyclopaedia Britannica authored a book titled “How to Think,” which I found puzzling. Don’t people already know how to think? Many years later, I’ve revised my verdict: We really don’t know how to think.

Kim Strohbehn, whose boyhood embrace of outer space resulted in a lengthy career as a senior professional engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, died Sunday from bone cancer at Sinai Hospital. The Ellicott City resident was 64.

By Frederick N. Rasmussen

Jan 18, 2018

Bear Branch Nature Center will hold a fun family program called “Snow Much Fun!” on Sunday, Jan. 14, from 1 to 2 p.m. at the center, located at 310 John Owings Road, just north of the airport on Md. 97.  

Here's a look at some of the stories that made headlines in 2017.

By Colin Campbell

Dec 30, 2017

Here is what to look for in the night sky throughout 2018.

By Scott Dance

Dec 28, 2017

NASA said Wednesday it has chosen two finalists for solar system exploration: A Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory plan to visit Saturn's moon Titan, and a proposal for a comet probe that would be managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

By Scott Dance

Dec 20, 2017

While world leaders met in Paris last week to discuss future global challenges, President Donald Trump held a White House ceremony to announce that the United States will return to the moon, again.

Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett has been awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his research on the universe’s origin and expansion.

By Sarah Gantz

Dec 3, 2017

Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 is a mouthful. So NASA is asking for help to name the icy body that Pluto explorer New Horizons is set to visit in just over a year.

By Scott Dance

Nov 7, 2017

Vigliotti: Bring the hyperloop to Carroll County

Scientists said they’ve detected the collision of two neutron stars and confirmed that these cataclysmic events are indeed a source of gold, platinum and other heavy e

Terry Virts may be retired from NASA, but the son of Columbia hasn’t stopped sharing his passion for space travel.

Halloween is a seasonal holiday, but how did it come to be?  There are numerous astronomical tie-ins to Halloween.

Five Harford County students, four in the Science and Mathematics Academy program at Aberdeen High and one at C. Milton Wright High, are named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program

By David Anderson

Sep 25, 2017

All the talk of interplanetary colonization shouldn't take away from our need to protect the Earth, David Horsey writes.

For the grown-ups, "Agalaonike's TIger" has Ann Fraistat portraying a no-nonsense Greek astronomer beset on all sides by dubious mythmaking, magic and mumbo jumbo.

John J. Royo Jr., a retired design engineer who worked on the LEM and Hubble Telescope, died Monday from multiple myeloma at his Columbia home. He was 82.

By Frederick N. Rasmussen

Sep 12, 2017

Despite its distance, Earth’s tidal forces dominate its moon.

Jack Willets from Clarksville recently attended Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.