Discovery Channel’s ‘Who Wants To Be An Astronaut’ will launch a contest winner into orbit with Axiom Space

The Discovery Channel is launching a new reality show competition series, “Who Wants To Be An Astronaut,” that aims to send ordinary people into space, the network announced Today (May 18). Axiom Space says it will rocket the lucky winner of the competition to the International Space Station for an eight-day mission. They aim for this mission to follow the launch of the world’s first all-private mission to the orbiting complex, which the company hopes to launch in 2022. That said, NASA has not yet stated if they will allow…

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What is the Big Bang Theory?

The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today. Because current instruments don’t allow astronomers to peer back at the universe’s birth, much of what we understand about the Big Bang Theory comes from mathematical formulas and models. Astronomers can, however, see the “echo” of the expansion through a phenomenon known as the cosmic microwave…

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China’s newly landed Mars rover Zhurong likely to roll into action this weekend

China’s first-ever Mars rover will roll into action this weekend, if all goes according to plan. The six-wheeled robot, part of China’s Tianwen-1 mission, touched down Friday evening (May 14) on the vast Martian plain Utopia Planitia. The rover, known as Zhurong, has remained atop its landing platform ever since — but it won’t for much longer. Zhurong will spend its first seven to eight days on the Martian surface studying its surroundings and performing checkouts on its systems and instruments, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported shortly after touchdown,…

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Watch an Atlas V rocket launch US Space Force missile-warning satellite today

[embedded content] Update for 12:40 p.m. EDT: United Launch Alliance has postponed Monday’s launch attempt to no earlier than Tuesday (May 18) at 1:31 p.m. EDT (1731 GMT), after engineers were unable to troubleshoot a problem with the rocket’s liquid oxygen supply system in time.  This story was updated at 12:20 p.m. EDT.  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — United Launch Alliance (ULA) will launch an Atlas V rocket into space today (May 17), and you can watch the action live online. The two-stage rocket will blast off from Space Launch Complex…

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