NASA and Axiom Space have signed an order for the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station to take place no earlier than January 2022.
Read MoreMonth: May 2021
Looking at Stars in the Early Universe
This June 2020 image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.
Read MoreUseful Projects for a Lunar Eclipse
Here’s all you need to know to help us measure the size of Earth’s shadow during the total lunar eclipse on Jan. 20–21, 2019. The post Useful Projects for a Lunar Eclipse appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreNova in Cassiopeia Brightens Suddenly
A star in the constellation Cassiopeia that flared into view during mid-March has erupted to naked-eye visibility. Catch it while you can! The post Nova in Cassiopeia Brightens Suddenly appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreSpaceX’s Elon Musk lands on ‘Saturday Night Live’ to talk space, Mars (and yes, Dogecoin)
SpaceX founder Elon Musk landed on late-night TV Saturday (May 8) to joke about space exploration, the popular Dogecoin cryptocurrency, which arose from a meme he once began, and more as the host of “Saturday Night Live.” Musk, known for his space company, Tesla electric cars and colorful comments on Twitter, hosted SNL with singer Miley Cyrus as the musical guest. He said he was the first SNL host to have Asperger’s syndrome as he opened the sketch comedy show in New York City late Saturday. Asperger’s is one of…
Read MorePhysicists get close to taming the chaos of the ‘three-body problem’
Physicists have spent centuries grappling with an inconvenient truth about nature: Faced with three stars on a collision course, astronomers could measure their locations and velocities in nanometers and milliseconds and it wouldn’t be enough to predict the stars’ fates. But the cosmos frequently brings together trios of stars and black holes. If astrophysicists hope to fully understand regions where heavenly bodies mingle in throngs, they must confront the “three-body problem.” While the result of a single three-body event is unknowable, researchers are discovering how to predict the range of…
Read More8 extremely rare ‘millisecond pulsars’ discovered inside globular clusters
An international team of astronomers has discovered eight rare millisecond pulsars hiding inside dense clusters of stars surrounding the Milky Way. A pulsar is a neutron star — city-sized stellar objects packed with a mass of at least 1.4 times the mass of our sun, which emerge from the explosive deaths of their parent stars — that gives off two beams of radio waves at each pole, due to its strong magnetic field, while also rapidly spinning because of its incredibly large mass. From our perspective, they look like flashing…
Read MoreNASA Administrator Statement on Chinese Rocket Debris
NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson released the following statement Saturday regarding debris from the Chinese Long March 5B rocket.
Read MoreSpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket on its 10th flight Sunday and you can watch it online
[embedded content] CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX will launch one of its rockets for a record 10th time Sunday (May 9), with a very sooty Falcon 9 rocket lofting a new fleet of Starlink satellites into space before dawn, and you can watch it live online. The Hawthorne, California-based company will launch 60 Starlink satellites on one of its fleet leaders, a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket dubbed B1051. The frequent flier will blast off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here in Florida at 2:42…
Read MoreThe top space stories of the week!
The U.S. celebrates 60 years of human spaceflight, a SpaceX Starship prototype completes a successful test landing and Venus’ days are always changing. These are some of the top stories this week from Space.com. This week marks 60 years of American spaceflight. The Redstone rocket carrying Mercury astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. lifts off from Cape Canaveral on May 5, 1961. (Image credit: NASA) Wednesday (May 5) was the 60th anniversary of Alan Shepard’s historic flight as the first American spacefarer. The Mercury astronaut’s 15-minute journey was just the beginning…
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