Mercury passes the Pleiades at dusk. Jupiter passes Venus in the dawn as Mars and Saturn watch. And can you name the three brightest stars of these spring nights? Hint: They’re all magnitude zero. The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, April 29 – May 6 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreMonth: April 2022
Full moon calendar 2022: When to see the next full moon
Related stories: The next full moon will occur on Monday, May 16 at 12:14 a.m. (0414 GMT), but the moon will appear full the night before and after its peak to the casual stargazer. The April full moon is also known as the Full Flower Moon. It will also feature a total lunar eclipse, the first of 2022. The full moon shows its face to Earth about once a month. Well, sort of. Most of the time, the full moon isn’t perfectly full. We always see the same side…
Read MoreRare Black Moon to block sun in 1st solar eclipse of 2022. See a Venus-Jupiter meetup near Eid, too.
Black Moon, meet the end of Ramadan. A rare type of moon will generate a solar eclipse on Saturday (April 30) just ahead of one of the largest festivals in the Muslim calendar: Eid Al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of fasting. Depending on the first sighting of the crescent moon phase, Eid falls on Sunday (May 1) or Monday (May 2) this year. The April new moon, or the Shawwal Moon to Muslims following the Islamic calendar, will also herald two more celestial events. First, a close approach…
Read MoreBrilliant fireball soars over Mississippi, sparking loud booms
Onlookers watched as a ball of fire streaked across southeastern skies Wednesday (April 27). Around 9:03 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) Wednesday morning, over 30 people from Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi reported looking up and seeing a fireball in the sky. Soon after, people across southern Mississippi reported hearing a loud “boom.” The explosive sound came from a fiery meteor barreling through Earth’s atmosphere at 55,000 mph (88,500 kph) generating an energy equivalent of 3 tons of TNT as it broke apart, creating shock waves that reached the ground and made…
Read MoreNASA Chooses Small Businesses to Continue Exploration Tech Development
NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has chosen 110 U.S. small businesses for continued technology development.
Read MoreScientists Wonder: Is the Origin of Life Extraterrestrial?
A new analysis method has revealed DNA building blocks in meteorites, suggesting that these prebiotic molecules might have formed during the solar system’s earliest years. The post Scientists Wonder: Is the Origin of Life Extraterrestrial? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreImproving Weather Data Using High-Altitude Balloons
In this image, World View’s Stratollite high-altitude balloon is inflated on the launch pad in Tucson, Arizona on April 9, 2022.
Read MoreSpaceX Crew-3 astronauts have fun testing spacesuits before coming home (photos)
The SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts (from left to right), ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron. (Image credit: NASA) The SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts seemed to be enjoying themselves as they tested out their spacesuits ahead of their return to Earth next week from the International Space Station. In new photos, the Crew-3 astronauts can be seen smiling in their now-iconic black-and-white SpaceX spacesuits and helmets, making full use of the lack of gravity. The crew, which includes NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and…
Read MoreSpaceX astronaut flights for NASA: Crew-4 mission updates
Refresh 2022-04-28T01:29:09.851Z Crew-4 astronauts enter ISS Image 1 of 2 The four astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission for NASA share warm hugs and big smiles with their Crew-3 counterparts after entering the International Space Station on April 27, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV) Image 2 of 2 The four astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission for NASA share warm hugs and big smiles with their Crew-3 counterparts after entering the International Space Station on April 27, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV) The four astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission to the International…
Read MoreApollo 17 moonwalker hails launch of fellow geologist-astronaut Jessica Watkins
One of the last men to set foot on the moon watched Wednesday as SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission for NASA blasted off to the International Space Station on a Falcon 9 rocket. Among the four Crew-4 astronauts are some who NASA is considering for a future lunar trip. Harrison Schmitt was a member of the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, which landed in the Taurus–Littrow valley on the near side of the moon. He was the first and so far the only geologist to visit the moon and was personally invited to watch…
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