Kids News - Space Articles

Space food has come a long way since John Glenn orbited Earth in 1962. He and other members of Project Mercury, the first American human spaceflight program, had to endure unappetizing foods that came in the form of bite-sized cubes, freeze-dried powders, and semi-liquids stuffed in aluminum tubes. Today astronauts can select from an extensive menu of over 70 foods and 20 beverages. The one thing they still can't get? Fresh fruits and vegetables!...

Cheers erupted at "Plutopalooza" parties all across the United States as the New Horizons spacecraft soared past the dwarf planet at 7:49 am EDT on Tuesday, July 14th. The historic encounter that brought the spacecraft within 7,800 miles of Pluto, successfully ended the three billion mile journey that began almost a decade ago....

On Saturday, April 4th, sky gazers in many parts of the world were treated to the third of the four lunar eclipses that will occur before the end of 2015. What made the celestial event even more special is that it was the shortest one of the century....

Fifty years ago, on March 18th, 1965, Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov took the first spacewalk. It lasted just twelve minutes and almost ended in a disaster. That's because the vacuum of space caused his pressurized suit to inflate and become rigid, making it impossible for Leonov to re-enter the Voskhod 2 space capsule airlock. The quick thinking astronaut let out some of the precious air from his suit and despite severe decompression sickness, manage to stumble back in and live to tell his harrowing tale....

On March 28th, US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on a historic mission - a year long visit to the International Space Station. The trip, the first of many that will be undertaken before a manned mission to Mars, is a test to gather information about the psychological and physical effects of extended space travel on the human body....

On December 5th, 2014, NASA scientists got one step closer to their dream of landing humans on Mars with Orion's successful test flight. One of the biggest challenges it overcame was withstanding the dreaded Van Allen radiation belt located 3,600 miles above Earth's surface. Now scientists have to come up with a way to ensure that the humans that will call the spacecraft home during the six-to-nine month long journey to the Red Planet and back, are able to do the same....

With Christmas less than two weeks away, your neighborhood is probably aglow with beautiful lights. However they will pale in comparison to nature's own light show, the Geminids. Though this annual celestial display that has been nicknamed the 900-pound gorilla of meteor showers has been visible since December 4th, their best showing will be on the night of December 13th and the early morning of the 14th, until about 2.00 am local time....

After a day's delay caused by a wayward boat, bad weather, and some technical problems, NASA's next generation spacecraft Orion, blasted off to space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7.05 EST on Friday, December 5th. Perched atop a Delta 4 heavy rocket, it soared through the Earth's atmosphere and disappeared into space....

On November 28th, 1964, NASA's Mariner 4 launched off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a historic mission - to carry out the first-ever flyby of Mars. Though it took a little over six months, on July 15th, 1965, the spacecraft successfully entered the Red Planet's orbit and sent back 22 images - providing scientists with the first ever close look at the surface of another planet from deep space. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this successful mission, crowd-sourced space-themed company Uwingu, ("sky" in Swahili), organized a global shout-out event....