On June 25, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) discovered its 1,500th comet. This tally tops all other comet discoverers throughout history combined. From ESA: When it comes to comet catching, the SOHO has one big advantage over everybody else: its location. Situated between the Sun and Earth, it has a privileged view of a region of space that can rarely be seen from Earth. From the surface, we can see regions close to the Sun clearly only...

Gus Grissom snuck dimes aboard the Liberty 7 capsule. Alan Shepard trumped that by taking a modified 6 iron and a golf ball on Apollo 14. Today, NASA permits astronauts to take a few items along on shuttle flights, as long as they aren’t potato chips . STS-124 Pilot Ken Ham appeared on “ Mike and Mike in the Morning ,” a sports talk show syndicated by ESPN radio. He talked about the upcoming Discovery flight and the trinkets he’ll take aboard — sports...

People love to jump on NASA when things aren’t going so hot for the space agency. Do you remember the reaction of some when the Hubble Space Telescope had its early hiccups? This is the same crowd that ignores NASA’s amazing successes, such as the twin rovers on Mars , Stardust catching a comet, Cassini revealing the saturnian system, and years of amazing images from Hubble . Recently, the media picked up a story about a 13-year-old German student...

A Delta II rocket carrying satellite USA-193 takes off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, December 14, 2006. USAF Tonight, the United States Navy may make its first attempt to shoot down failing spy satellite USA-193 . The Pentagon released notification, but conditions must be ideal for the rocket launch. Without planned removal, the satellite would come back down in early March. The satellite, which failed immediately after its December...

This morning, I was looking through images of the current shuttle mission on NASA’s site . I came across the photograph posted to the right. In it, STS-122 Commander Steven Frick is writing on a tablet in front of a control panel. I’m a gadget freak, so although the operations portion of the image is beyond my comprehension, I noticed what adorns Frick’s wrist: a Yes Watch . For me, this is cooler than noticing a “Roman centurion” wearing a wristwatch...

In 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin captured the famous footage of what many cryptozooligists and kooks believe is Bigfoot. Perhaps sick of urban sprawl, the Patterson-Gimin Sasquatch relocated to the Red Planet. In a panoramic image captured by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in November 2007, a Bigfoot-like figure appears among the surface formations. The Internet grabbed hold of this photo around the beginning of 2008, and bloggers have...

Astronaut Andrew Feustel was at the Daytona International Speeedway in Florida last week for the kickoff of NASCAR’s 2008 season. NASA and the racing league are both celebrating 50th milestones: the space agency’s anniversary and the running of the Daytona 500. The astronaut toured the pits and garages and met some drivers. Feustel also drove a few laps in a stock car, reaching 100 mph. That’s fast, but on his August 2008 shuttle flight, Feustel will...

Update from January 9: Since our last update, we have received numerous tracking measurements of asteroid 2007 WD5 from four different observatories. These new data have led to a significant reduction in the position uncertainties during the asteroid's close approach to Mars on Jan. 30, 2008. As a result, the impact probability has dropped dramatically, to approximately 0.01% or 1 in 10,000 odds, effectively ruling out the possible collision with...

With President Bush’s call for a return to the lunar surface, dozens of titles about the Moon have hit bookstores. From the volumes that have crossed my desk, most are nostalgic or historic accounts that showcase the people behind earlier lunar missions. Robert Godwin has assembled one of the more original books from this genre. The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook: A Pictorial History of Lunar Vehicles (Apogee, 2007) shows readers the designs for rovers...

The other week I wrote about an auction for those with celestial tastes . I've come across another space-themed auction. On October 28, Boston auctioneer Skinner will host a sale that includes several lots of NASA memorabilia. This auction features a Mercury 7 astronaut's test glove with pen inscriptions "Glenn" and "Schirra," a Project Gemini spaceflight capsule flotation ball referred to as "Unsinkable Molly Brown...