Update (7:27 p.m.) – SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday night. It took off at 7:05 p.m. and carried 26 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit. The first-stage booster successfully landed on a drone ship in the Pacific. ___ A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday night. …
Read More »
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate will be a commander for a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station. According to NASA, Zena Cardman, a UNC graduate and current astronaut, will serve as the commander for the Crew 11 mission set to depart for the ISS later between …
Read More »
Scientists at the European Space Agency used a laser to communicate with a spacecraft 165 million miles (265 million kilometers) away in deep space for the first time, marking a major step forward in their efforts to build optical communication systems for future missions to the Moon and beyond. Scientists at the Kryoneri Observatory near Athens, Greece, shot a powerful …
Read More »
Giant space ‘boulders’ unleashed by NASA’s DART mission aren’t behaving as expected, revealing hidden risks of deflecting asteroids Live Science NASA’s asteroid-crash Earth defense tactic has a complication — DART ejected large boulders into space Space Deflecting Asteroids Isn’t Simple According to New Data from DART Universe Today “Something Unknown Is At Work Here”: Unexpected Results From NASA Mission To Deflect Asteroid IFLScience DART’s …
Read More »
QUICK FACTS Where is it? Klyuchevskoy (Klyuchevskaya Sopka), Russia [56.050698, 160.6463962] What’s in the photo? A giant eruption plume trailing off an erupting volcano Which satellite took the photo? NASA Aqua When was it taken? Nov. 1, 2023 This eerie satellite photo shows a “devilish” Russian volcano spewing out a 1,000-mile-long river of smoke into Earth’s atmosphere. It is a …
Read More »
James Gunn’s Superman is a curious film: so earnest, so heartfelt, and so defiantly weird it sometimes feels less like a reboot of the world’s most iconic superhero and more like an elaborate fan project. Most of us will be relieved we’ve said goodbye to the heavy metal space Jesus of the Zack Snyder years, and that Gunn has avoided …
Read More »
Tens of thousands of pieces of space debris are hurtling around Earth right now. These defunct satellites, spent rocket stages, collision fragments and even a toolbox threaten active spacecraft and could trigger cascading disasters that make space unusable for generations. Since removing just a single piece of debris can cost tens of millions of dollars, the critical question becomes which …
Read More »
Ice is a key component in the universe. There are frozen water molecules on comets, moons, exoplanets, and in your drink as you cool off from the summer heat. However, under the microscope, not all ice is the same, even though it is made of the same components. The internal structure of Earth’s ice is a cosmological oddity. Its molecules …
Read More »
IN A NUTSHELL 🔭 The James Webb Space Telescope has directly imaged its first exoplanet, TWA 7b, revolutionizing exoplanet discovery. 🪐 TWA 7b, a planet with a mass similar to Saturn, is located about 100 light-years from Earth, offering insights into planetary formation. 🌟 Webb’s advanced infrared capabilities and coronagraph technology enable it to overcome challenges in direct imaging of …
Read More »
It is 50 years since the last hurrah of the Apollo program, with a mission that saw the final launch of an Apollo vehicle, and a subsequent docking with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. The mission was the first and only spaceflight of Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury 7 group of astronauts, who had been disqualified from …
Read More »