If you find a bottleneck in Making the Modern World there is one likely culprit: the Apollo 10 capsule. It is impossible, even for staff, to walk by without taking a sly glance at this magnificent object. Whilst unassuming – with its battered, singed red exterior – it tells us so much about the potential [...]
The V2 rocket engine was developed in Germany in the early 1940s. The engine was far bigger than any other rocket engine built before, making the V2 rocket the first long range missile used in World War 2. Propelled by an alcohol and liquid oxygen fuel, V2 had a range of over 320km and travelled at about [...]
Ever come across something so cool that you think ‘I just have to share this’? Well, check out this Space Shuttle time-lapse, collated from a series of images taken from Space Shuttles Discovery and Atlantis whilst docked at the International Space Station (ISS) for the last time. Thanks to Flavio for sharing! Atlantis’s landing today marks the [...]
Last month, the world celebrated 50 years since the first manned spaceflight, by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Yuri became the first man in space after completing a single orbit of Earth on the Soviet spacecraft Vostok, in April 1961 (at the Science Museum we actually have a fantastic drama event about Yuri’s incredible journey). Last month, a [...]
Let’s talk about the importance of peer review. Particularly in light of the recent announcement by NASA scientist Richard B. Hoover in the Journal of Cosmology, that fossil evidence of bacterial life has been found in meteorites. That we are not alone out there, and that life on alien worlds may actually be more similar to life on [...]
The planet Mars is the closest we have in our solar system to being called hospitable (well, after our own beloved Earth)- it has surface gravity, an atmosphere, carbon dioxide, minerals and most importantly, water. But would you want to take a one-way trip over there? Some scientists, like Dirk Schulze-Makuch, speculate that to [...]
The Hubble telescope is celebrating 20 years of stargazing this year. Launched in 1990, Hubble orbits the Earth sending back images of the universe. Scientists have been able to use Hubble to help more accurately determine the age of the universe (somewhere between 13-14 billions years old, just in case you were wondering) and the telescope also played [...]
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