Month: June 2021

China to launch 3 astronauts to space station tonight

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China is poised to launch its first crewed spaceflight in nearly five years. The Shenzhou-12 mission is scheduled to lift off tonight (June 16) from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 9:22 p.m. EDT (0122 GMT and 9:22 a.m. Beijing time on June 17), Chinese space officials announced on Tuesday (June 15). Shenzhou-12 will launch atop a Long March 2F rocket and send three astronauts to Tianhe (“Harmony of the Heavens”), the core module of China’s new space station. Related: The latest news about China’s space program The…

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Strange ‘blinking’ star near heart of Milky Way catches scientists’ eyes

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It’s always a good sign when astronomers are blunt about how observations have puzzled them. One such confusing object, discovered by a project called the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey, or VVV, appears to be just the second of its kind known to scientists — and a kind that appears to be particularly dramatic, according to new research. That’s the conclusion of a team of scientists who spotted a bright star that nearly disappeared before their very eyes. “Occasionally we find variable stars that don’t fit into any…

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‘The Outer Worlds 2’ is happening and here’s the 1st trailer

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[embedded content] “The Outer Worlds 2,” the sequel to the beloved video game “The Outer Worlds,” is in production, but the lighthearted teaser trailer from Microsoft Xbox says developers aren’t ready to talk about anything else but its name. The surprise successor to the popular 2019 action role-playing game in space was announced Sunday (June 13) at E3, a large industry gaming conference held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The over-the-top 90-second trailer pokes fun at how early-stage gaming announcements, like that of “The Outer Worlds 2,”…

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Looking at the stars, or falling by the wayside? How astronomy is failing female scientists

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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. Lisa Kewley, Director, ARC Centre for Excellence in All-Sky Astrophysics in 3D, Australian National University It will take until at least 2080 before women make up just one-third of Australia’s professional astronomers unless there is a significant boost to how we nurture female researchers’ careers. Over the past decade, astronomy has been rightly recognized as leading the push towards gender equity in the sciences. But my new modeling, published in Nature Astronomy, shows it…

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