Shoemaker discovered more than 800 asteroids and 32 comets, including one of the most famous comets of the 20th century. The post Remembering Carolyn Shoemaker (1929–2021) appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreMonth: August 2021
Brilliant, Hot, Young Stars Shine in the Small Magellanic Cloud
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), located 210,000 light-years away, is one of the most dynamic and intricately detailed star-forming regions in space.
Read MoreAlien ‘Dyson spheres’ could be harvesting the power of black holes
Technologically-savvy aliens could be powering their society using a hypothetical megastructure called a Dyson sphere to harvest energy from a black hole. And the sphere might radiate in peculiar ways, allowing telescopes on Earth to discover the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, a new study suggests. A Dyson sphere is a speculative structure that would encircle a star with a tight formation of orbiting platforms in order to capture starlight and produce power, according to Live Science’s sister site Space.com. First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson…
Read MoreSatellite photos show final US evacuation efforts from Kabul airport in Afghanistan
As the U.S. military winds down its airlift American citizens and Afghan refugees from Kabul in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, satellites have captured stark views of the effort from space. Images from satellites operated by Maxar Technologies shows scenes of the Hamid Karzai International Airport from Friday (Aug. 27) as the U.S. nears an Aug. 31 deadline to complete its evacuation efforts. The were taken one day after a deadly suicide bombing killed as many as 170 civilians and 13 members of the U.S. military at…
Read More6 mysterious structures hidden beneath the Greenland ice sheet
Fridtjof Nansen, the leader of the first expedition to cross Greenland, once described what he found in the Arctic as “the great adventure of the ice, deep and pure as infinity.” Nansen, who made his journey in 1888, could not have known of the wonders hidden below the icy landscape beneath his skis. Today, thanks to radar and other technologies, the part of Greenland that sits below its 9,800-foot-thick(3,000 meters) ice sheet is coming into focus. These new tools reveal a complex, invisible landscape that holds clues to the past…
Read MoreSpaceX launches Dragon cargo capsule to space station, nails rocket landing at sea
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched its 21st rocket of the year today (Aug 29), sending a robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station (ISS) before nailing a landing at sea. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Launch Complex 39A here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 3:14 a.m. EDT (0714 GMT), kicking off the company’s 23rd cargo resupply mission to the orbiting lab for NASA. The Dragon is packed with more than 4,800 pounds (2,200 kilograms) of supplies, scientific experiments and hardware, including a new…
Read MoreCutting-Edge Science Launches on NASA’s SpaceX Cargo Resupply Mission
The latest SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft is bound for the International Space Station after launching at 3:14 a.m. EDT Sunday from from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying more than 4,800 pounds of science experiments, crew supplies, and spacecraft hardware.
Read MoreHurricane Ida expected to slam into Louisiana as ‘extremely dangerous major hurricane’
Hurricane Ida is barreling across the Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds of nearly 100 mph (155 km/h). Its eye is trained on Louisiana, where the swirling storm is expected to make landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, Accuweather forecasters said Saturday afternoon (Aug. 28). The storm would be the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2021 season to make landfall on U.S. soil, Accuweather reported. As of 1 p.m. CDT (1 p.m. EDT), Ida was about 290 miles (470 kilometers) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and 380…
Read MoreAstra rocket fails to reach space during test launch for US military
The third try wasn’t the charm for Astra. The California Bay Area startup attempted its third orbital test flight today (Aug. 28), sending its two-stage Launch Vehicle 0006 skyward from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska’s Kodiak Island at 6:35 p.m. EDT (2235 GMT). The rocket suffered an anomaly about 2.5 minutes after liftoff, however, and the flight was terminated. Something appeared to be wrong from the beginning, as Launch Vehicle 0006 lurched sideways at the moment of liftoff rather than rise smoothly off the pad. But the rocket recovered…
Read MoreBad weather delays SpaceX Dragon cargo launch to space station
The International Space Station will have to wait one more day to receive its next cargo shipment. SpaceX planned to launch a Dragon cargo spacecraft to the orbiting laboratory early Saturday (Aug. 28) with 4,800 pounds (2,200 kilograms) of supplies for the Expedition 65 crew. But Mother Nature had other plans, and storms near the launch site led SpaceX to delay the launch by about 24 hours. “Weather is not in our favor today,” SpaceX production supervisor Andy Tran said during a live webcast of Saturday’s launch attempt. “The vehicles,…
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