A Short History of Supernova Observations
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 25, 2024
The Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion is a fascinating star. It’s a red supergiant more than six hundred times the diameter of the Su...
Showing posts with the label Space
The Dozen Times Humans Have Tried to Communicate With Extraterrestrials
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 13, 2024
The question of whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe has intrigued humanity for centuries. As our technological capabil...
A Piece of Sputnik in Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 30, 2023
In the early 1960s, before the Soviets sent Yuri Gagarin to space, they began their Vostok programme with a series of unmanned test flight...
Nedelin Catastrophe: The Worst Space-Related Disaster
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 19, 2023
The Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan is one of the busiest and the most important spaceport on earth with over a thousand satellit...
The Oldest Functioning Satellite
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 10, 2023
The Lincoln Calibration Sphere 1, or LCS-1, is a large, hollow, aluminum sphere with a precisely defined cross-section that has been on Eart...
Why Soviet Cosmonauts Carried a Gun to Space
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 27, 2022
For decades, the standard survival kit carried by Russian cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz spacecraft included a specially built gun and a few do...
How an Ancient Piece of Earth Rock Ended Up on The Moon
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 11, 2022
The six Apollo missions that landed on the moon from 1969 to 1972 brought back several hundred kilograms of rocks from the lunar surface. Sc...
Félicette: The Cat Who Went to Space
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 8, 2022
During the early years of space flight, animals were frequently flown into space and their bodies examined to investigate the various physio...
Luna 9: The First Soft Landing on Another Planetary Body
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 2, 2022
The first spacecraft to achieve a survivable soft-landing on the moon was the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna 9. It was an exceedingly diffi...
The Great Comet of 1861
Kaushik Patowary
May 19, 2022
The 19th century was a great time for sky watchers. Between 1811 and 1882 as many as eight great comets became visible from earth dazzling s...
Belka and Strelka: Soviet Space Dogs
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 17, 2021
In August 1960, two dogs named Belka and Strelka completed went to space aboard a Soviet spacecraft, stayed for a full day orbiting, and ret...
Venera 7, The First Craft to Make Controlled Landing on Another Planet And Send Data From its Surface
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 9, 2021
By 1961 the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union had been going on for six years. The Soviets had the upper hand, havin...
Vladimir Komarov: The Cosmonaut Who Fell From Space
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 9, 2021
The year 1967 held special significance for Soviet Union—it was the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, as well as the 10th annivers...
The Soviet Moon Prank
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 24, 2021
In December 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, became the first men to fly around the moon and return to earth. But they ...
The First Mars Rover
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 26, 2021
In May 1971, the Soviet Union sent to Mars two robotic space probes launched within nine days of each other—Mars 2 and Mars 3. Neither space...
Mercury 13: The Women Who Almost Became Astronauts
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 20, 2021
If everything goes as planned, a few hours from now, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would blast off into space aboard the suborbital space vehicl...
The Oldest Orbiting Satellite
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 7, 2021
When a satellite is launched into space it is not expected to last forever. The satellite carries on board a limited amount of fuel which wi...
Why Apollo Astronauts Lobbed Grenades on The Moon
Kaushik Patowary
May 24, 2021
The Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s provided scientists with an exciting playground upon which to conduct experiments never performed i...
Russia’s Hand-Tossed Satellites
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 19, 2021
On November 3, 1997, cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and Anatoly Solovyov were spacewalking outside the Mir space station to remove an old solar ...
Why The Soviet Union Lied About Yuri Gagarin's Historic Space Flight
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 12, 2021
Exactly sixty years ago, on April 12, 1961, Vostok 1 took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome taking along cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on the first ever...
