After nearly a year since its launch last November, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will make contact with the Dimorphos asteroid Monday evening. The spacecraft is expected to directly hit the double asteroid system to test whether it is possible to...
NASA
Planetary scientist available to comment on NASA’s discovery of surface water on Moon
NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) confirmed today – for the first time ever – water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed...
Bright fireball event near Bancroft, Ont. may have dropped meteorites
A fireball as bright as the full moon was observed by the Western University All-Sky Camera Network across southern Ontario and Quebec 2:44 a.m. ET this morning (Wednesday, July 24). Western’s Physics and Astronomy Department runs an all-sky camera network in...
Western planetary scientists assist in capturing first full-colour image of NASA InSight using HiRISE space camera
Houston, there is no problem here. Eric Pilles assisted in capturing – for the first-time ever – extraordinary and highly significant scientific images of the NASA InSight robotic lander using HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), the camera currently...
Boy meets world: Life-long space buff and Western graduate student discovers exoplanet
Ever since Chris Fox was a young boy, he wanted to visit alien planets. With no immediate plans for such a voyage, the Western University graduate student has done the next best thing. He’s gone and found one. Teamed with Paul Wiegert, Graduate Program Director at...
NASA shortlists Western co-investigated project for future launch to Saturn’s largest moon
NASA has shortlisted a revolutionary strategy, co-investigated by a Western University planetary scientist, for a future launch mission that could see a drone-like quadcopter buzz above the surface of Saturn's largest moon. The Dragonfly project would take advantage...
Western University astronomers predict possible birthplace of Rosetta-probed comet 67P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCSB1l8UHgA&feature=youtu.be When the Rosetta spacecraft successfully touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on September 30, 2016, the news was shared globally via Twitter in dozens of languages. Citizens the world over...
Western University cameras capture fireball in the sky over Georgian Bay
https://youtu.be/_tav_aU303Q Researchers from Western University have released footage of a basketball-sized fireball that was seen widely by observers throughout southern Ontario and adjacent areas early Friday morning (Oct. 7). Peter Brown, Canada Research Chair in...
Western astronomer part of international identification of possible population of new black holes
Astronomers have combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to conclude that a peculiar source of radio waves thought to be a distant galaxy is actually a...
Extraterrestrial investigator and retired NASA administrator asks, Are we alone?
Charged with determining the existence of life elsewhere in the universe, the Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation – an international, intensified extraterrestrial search spearheaded by Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking – is coming to Western University....