A SpaceX rocket just inched closer to the record books. A Falcon 9 vehicle lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California tonight (July 10) at 11:01 p.m. EDT (8:01 p.m. local time; 0301 GMT on July 11), carrying 29 of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites toward low Earth orbit (LEO). It was the 35th flight for this rocket’s first stage, a booster designated B1071. The SpaceX record is 36, set just a few days ago by B1067 on another Starlink mission. Previous Booster B1071 launches And, there will likely…
Read MoreA ravenous black hole in our backyard could be our window into the ancient universe
A supermassive black hole at the heart of a nearby galaxy is behaving similarly to black holes that existed just after the Big Bang, voraciously feeding on copious amounts of matter. The relatively close cosmic titan could therefore provide insight into the much more distant universe. Indeed, the intense accretion behavior demonstrated by the supermassive black hole, which sits at the center of the galaxy SDSS J110546.07+145202.4 located 1.8 billion light-years away, is something scientists have only ever seen in the earliest supermassive black holes. SDSS J110546.07+145202.4 has been shining…
Read MoreEarly Career Faculty (ECF) 2025 Awards
1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Back to ECF Home Advanced Diagnostics for High-Enthalpy Test Facilities Simulating Spacecraft Atmospheric Entry Damiano BaccarellaUniversity of Tennessee, KnoxvilleApplication of Resonance Enhanced Multi-Photon Ionization Diagnostics to the Characterization of Arcjet Flows Ciprian DumitracheColorado State UniversityUltrafast Laser Diagnostics for Nonequilibrium Flowfields Characterization in Atmospheric Entry Studies Dan FriesUniversity of Kentucky, LexingtonMultiplexed Polarization Spectroscopy for Single-Shot Multi-Species Diagnostics in High-Enthalpy Flows Yi MazumdarGeorgia Institute of TechnologySimultaneous Temperature, Species, and Velocity Measurements using Ultrafast Laser Diagnostics for Ground Testing of Spacecraft Atmospheric…
Read MoreNASA Volunteers Help Zooniverse Reach 1 Billion Classifications
Explore This Section Science Citizen Science NASA Volunteers Help… Overview Resources Opportunities Citizen Science Highlights About Science Activation The Zooniverse, a NASA grantee that runs the world’s largest platform for online people-powered research, has reached an extraordinary milestone: 1 billion classifications contributed by volunteers around the world. This milestone is a celebration of everyone who has marked a dip in a light curve, confirmed the presence of a moving object in a short video, or identified species in a camera trap image. Each of these small contributions collectively advances…
Read MoreLaunching from 2 continents: Germany’s Isar Aerospace leases Canadian pad for $150 million
German company Isar Aerospace is expanding its operations overseas after signing an agreement with Canada’s Maritime Launch Services for use of its Spaceport Nova Scotia. The deal allows Isar to design and operate the pad infrastructure based on the company’s needs, in order to launch its Spectrum rocket. In return, Maritime Launch Services (MLS) will provide the pad and surrounding facilities for vehicle stage and payload integration, testing and a mission control hub for launch operations. The agreement grants Isar a $150 million, 10-year lease for the MLS launch site,…
Read MoreNASA Photographer Captures Images from F-18 Over Washington
2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA photographer Jim Ross flies above the Washington Monument in Washington on Saturday, July 4, 2026, in an F-18 aircraft, as part of a flyover to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. This aircraft is from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and it joined other NASA aircraft for the flyover. NASA/Jim Ross NASA flight photographers capture history from a perspective few ever experience, getting a rare bird’s-eye view of the agency’s missions in action. Their photos document key…
Read MoreThis Week’s Sky at a Glance, July 10 – 19
The bright, distinctive pattern of Upper Scorpius is on its best display in the south right after nightfall. Telescopic treasures await. In the west, Regulus now departs from Venus. The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, July 10 – 19 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreNASA Sets Coverage for Astronaut Anil Menon Launch to Space Station
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, Soyuz MS-29 prime crew members, pose for a portrait at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia. Credit: GCTC NASA astronaut Anil Menon will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft to the International Space Station on Tuesday, July 14, accompanied by cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, where they will join the Expedition 74 crew advancing scientific research. Menon, Dubrov, and Kikina will lift off at 10:47 a.m. EDT (7:47 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome…
Read MoreWally Funk, trailblazing pilot and astronaut, passes away at 87
Wally Funk, who flew to space at 82 after a lifetime of flying and fighting for women in aviation and aerospace, has passed away at age 87. Born in Texas in 1939, Funk was determined to take to the skies, flying as a teenager and becoming a professional aviator at the tender age of 20. Her dreams extended even beyond Earth, and in 1961 she joined the “Mercury 13” group of women who completed the testing given to NASA’s male Apollo astronauts. But Funk was the only Mercury 13 alum…
Read MoreScientists have discovered the oldest quasar ever seen, and it shines with the light of a trillion suns
Using the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope, astronomers have discovered a treasure trove of 31 black-hole-powered quasars in the early universe. The most impressive of these new discoveries is the most ancient and distant quasar ever seen, shining with the light of a trillion suns just 670 million years after the Big Bang. Quasars occur when supermassive black holes with masses millions or even billions of times that of the sun are surrounded by swirling disks of matter called accretion disks. As accretion disks gradually feed these central cosmic…
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