NASA – Rebecca Boyle

Shooting the moon

Posted on October 8, 2009August 13, 2013 by Rebecca Boyle in Blog, Freelance Work

Tonight, NASA will crash a rocket into the moon — on purpose, of course. You can watch online and read all about it in my latest story:

The harvest moon–which came a couple weeks late this year, on Oct. 4–has long allowed farmers to gather their crops late into the night, using moonlight as a beacon.

Someday, the moon might yield a harvest of its own, thanks to a natural supply of water. A NASA probe is set to crash into the moon this week in search of that potential bounty. Here’s how you can watch it from here on Earth.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-10/tomorrow-nasa-will-smash-rocket-lunar-crater#

Putting Handymen to Shame

Posted on May 18, 2009August 13, 2013 by Rebecca Boyle in Blog, Freelance Work

Who said the Hubble servicing mission would be hard? Two astronauts did in 3 hours what was supposed to take 5, and fixed one of the Hubble’s most important instruments, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph.

And they did it wearing the equivalent of boxing gloves, putting Earth-bound handymen everywhere to shame.

Now that it’s been spruced up, the STIS and its new partner, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, will help us understand what the universe is made of.