Comet Siding Spring Skimming Mars and Giving Our Satellites a Scare. Here’s Why You Should Be Watching this Event Today!     Comets are fascinating and valuable to astronomers and scientists alike. It helps us understand where we come from or how we even got here. It’s said that comets were the reason water is even on Earth. Now why the fuss over Comet Siding Spring? Well here is the lowdown:   Quick Facts You Need to Know About Comet Siding Spring:   It will just skim Mars by 87,000 km. To give you an idea, our Moon is about 384,400 km from our Earth so this comet would pass in between earth and the moon and show up like a second sun in the sky. Comet Siding Spring is hurtling through space at about 56 km/s! The weight alone is about the weight of a mountain. It’s also shedding 220 pounds of dust per second. This comet took an estimated million years to...

2014 Update on the Mission to Jupiter’s Moon Europa     The mission to Europa has been a dream for many planetary scientists for a long time and now NASA is asking for proposals for what science instruments should be on board for the mission. One of the main reasons Europa is an excellent prospect to send an orbiter or spacecraft is the ocean of water beneath its thick icy crust. As far as we know water is a great indicator for potential life and with a combination of tidal heating it makes Europa a suitable candidate for life. Before we jump into the details of the mission let’s take a look at why Europa is insanely cool!   Europa: All the Fun Facts You Want to Know     It’s still quite mind boggling that not only do we live in a galaxy that may support from 100-400 billion exoplanets but now moons may be capable of harbouring life as well!...