Month: March 2021

A big asteroid will zoom safely past Earth on March 21, NASA says

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The largest asteroid to zoom past Earth this year will do so on March 21, NASA says.  Astronomers will get a valuable opportunity to observe a space rock up close as asteroid 2001 FO32 swoops past our home planet on March 21, but the rock won’t come closer than 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers), NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced today (March 11) in a statement.  “There is no threat of a collision with our planet now or for centuries to come,” the statement read.  Related: Scientists prepare for their last…

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This strange lava-rich alien planet is making itself a new atmosphere

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Scientists think they’ve spied an alien world that lost its atmosphere — then conjured itself a new one. That’s according to a new analysis of Hubble Space Telescope observations gathered in 2017 of a planet dubbed GJ 1132 b. The world tightly orbits a red dwarf star located about 41 light-years from Earth, completing one circle every 1.5 Earth days and soaking up lots of stellar radiation in the process. And now, scientists think they see signs of a secondary atmosphere, one that was born of the exoplanet itself long…

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‘For All Mankind’ exclusive sneak peek: Watch Gordo Stevens try out a new spacesuit in ‘Pathfinder’

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[embedded content] After facing down a zipper “malfunction” in the Apple TV+ alternate history space show “For All Mankind,”  astronaut Gordo Stevens is getting used to a spacesuit again. As we saw last week, Stevens is trying to get his space groove back for a new mission, his first in years. He’s put on a bit of weight and it’s been a while since he last wore on a spacesuit, but Stevens is hoping the old routine will come back to him after his moon flights of the 1960s. Since…

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Thousands more satellites will soon orbit Earth. We need better rules to prevent space crashes.

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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Lauren Napier, PhD Researcher in Space Law and Policy, Northumbria University, Newcastle In recent years, satellites have become smaller, cheaper, and easier to make with commercial off the shelf parts. Some even weigh as little as one gram. This means more people can afford to send them into orbit. Now, satellite operators have started launching megaconstellations — groups of hundreds or even thousands of small satellites working together — into orbit around Earth. Instead…

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Rare supernova relic found at the core of our Milky Way

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NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered the remains of a rare kind of stellar explosion near the center of the Milky Way.  Supernovas are stellar explosions that seed the galaxy with elements vital for life. Sagittarius A East (or Sgr A East) is a supernova remnant that lies near Sagittarius A* — the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. This supernova remnant is the first known example in our own Milky Way galaxy of an unusual type of white dwarf stellar explosion called a Type Iax…

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Andrew Chaikin’s ‘A Man on the Moon’ relaunched as Folio Society book set

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[embedded content] When Andrew Chaikin’s “A Man on the Moon” was first published in 1994, a quarter century had passed since the first astronauts walked on the lunar surface. Now, more than 25 years after its release, a new, deluxe version of the book is ready for the next generation of lunar explorers, space enthusiasts and anyone who wonders what it was like to journey from Earth to the moon. Described as the definitive account of NASA’s Apollo program by the astronauts themselves, Chaikin’s “A Man on the Moon: The…

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