The Clansman PRC-320 - Plessey RT-320 Military Manpack Transciever [HD] - M0VST (by Markbeermonster)

SpaceX announced they are planning to send their Red Dragon capsule to Mars as soon as 2018

To send Red Dragon spacecraft to Mars, SpaceX is building a mega-rocket called Falcon Heavy. Based on the company’s successful Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy consists of three core rocket stages, each of which is equipped with landing legs for reusability. They would use the capsule’s thrusters to make a landing. 

This artist’s illustration shows how the capsule could enter Mars’ atmosphere. SpaceX has successfully returned their capsules to Earth during space station resupply missions for NASA.

The Dragon can carry seven astronauts to and from destinations like the International Space Station (not yet a manned mission to Mars I’d guess 😄). Here’s an illustration of the Dragon Version 1 (the new version has some differences), to get the idea:

credit: SpaceX, Karl Tate/Space.com

World ham radio prefix map

NGC 7023, Ghost Nebula

Imagine a messy clump not unlike the hair clogging your sink, only on a celestial scale. This wad of soggy detritus sits way out in the Kuiper belt, where Pluto and other small, icy bodies hang out. Also, the mysterious clump in question consists of said icy objects and not actual hair. This would be a very different entry otherwise.

Scientists weren’t quite sure what caused this, so they started running computer simulations of different things that might make them clump in the observed way. In January 2016, they published a paper presenting a potential cause for the phenomenon: a hitherto undiscovered giant of a planet, 10 times the size of Earth, skulking all but silently about the edges of our solar system like a cosmic Hodor.

Arguments for and against the theory are ongoing and just so, so dorky – but computer simulations certainly do support the idea that a large planet could be causing these groupings to occur. So we might have a whole new planet! Your outdated knee-jerk answer of “nine” when somebody asks how many planets are in our solar system may once again be correct!

5 Mysteries About Space That Might Have Horrifying Answers

1959 Radio Man

Orbital Symphony

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager 1 

At about 89,000 miles in diameter, Jupiter could swallow 1,000 Earths. It is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet’s atmosphere. Such winds sustain spinning anticyclones like the Great Red Spot – a raging storm three and a half times the size of Earth at the time of this photo, located in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. In January and February 1979, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft zoomed toward Jupiter, capturing hundreds of images during its approach, including this close-up of swirling clouds around Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

THIS COMET IS DRUNK

Comet Lovejoy is the first comet we’ve found that disperses ethyl alcohol into space, as much as would be in 500 bottles of wine every second.