As fall proceeds, Jupiter and Saturn shift westward and tilt ever more steeply. Venus gets a little higher and brighter. The waning Moon passes the Pleiades. And as Halloween approaches, Arcturus becomes the Ghost of Summer Suns. The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, October 22 – 30 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreMonth: October 2021
NASA stacks Orion capsule atop SLS megarocket for Artemis 1 moon mission (video)
NASA just took a big step toward its next moonshot. NASA stacked its Orion crew capsule atop its Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday (Oct. 20), notching a major milestone for the agency and its Artemis program of crewed lunar exploration. This Orion-SLS duo will fly the first-ever mission in that program — Artemis 1, an uncrewed flight around the moon that’s targeted to launch early next year. In photos: The Orion space capsule: NASA’s next spaceship The Orion crew capsule for NASA’s Artemis…
Read MoreCoverage Set for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 Briefings, Events, Broadcasts
NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station.
Read MoreOctober’s full ‘Hunter’s moon’ of 2021 wows skywatchers (photos)
The full moon of Wednesday (Oct. 21), known by many as the “Hunter’s Moon,” provided a celestial treat for skywatchers around the world. Full moons occur when the orbit of the moon, relative to the Earth, swings around into a position where full sunlight falls upon the planet-facing side. A full moon happens roughly every 29.5 Earth days, and on rarer occasions, the sun, moon and Earth align and allow for a lunar eclipse as the Earth’s shadow passes across the moon’s face. Here are some of the images that…
Read MoreMeet Starlab: Private space station planned to fly in 2027
Earth orbit may be a hive of commercial activity a few years from now. Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin announced today (Oct. 21) that they plan to get a free-flying private space station up and running in low Earth orbit (LEO) by 2027. The outpost, called Starlab, is envisioned to be a tourist destination as well as a research and manufacturing hub that helps foster the growth of an off-Earth economy. “To meet U.S. government, international space agency and commercial needs in space, these industry leaders will develop Starlab…
Read MoreChina’s FAST Observatory Sees More Than 1,000 Radio Bursts from a Single Spot
The largest haul of fast radio burst observations ever recorded, all from a single fast radio burst, is helping astronomers understand what causes these fleeting cosmic phenomena The post China’s FAST Observatory Sees More Than 1,000 Radio Bursts from a Single Spot appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Read MoreNASA’s Glenn Delgado Receives US Women’s Chamber of Commerce Award
The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce presented Glenn A. Delgado, NASA’s associate administrator for the agency’s Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP), with its CEO Award on Wednesday, Oct. 20.
Read MoreHubble Snapshot of ‘Molten Ring’ Galaxy Prompts New Research
The Hubble Space Telescope’s glamour shots of the universe nearly always have a discovery behind them.
Read MoreSiege of top-secret Area 51 began as a joke. Officials prepared to use deadly force in response.
When a UFO enthusiast posted an event on Facebook about “storming” the military base known as Area 51, he meant it as a joke. However, it was no laughing matter to federal and state law enforcement, who readied a lethal response to prevent revelers from breaching the off-limits area, records recently revealed. Area 51 is a U.S. Air Force installation in southern Nevada’s Groom Lake, a salt flat about 80 miles (129 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas. For decades, the base’s remote location and restricted access have fueled speculation about…
Read MoreNASA’s Lucy asteroid probe settles into Earth-orbiting cruise as engineers tackle solar array glitch
Days after NASA’s new mission to a mysterious group of asteroids launched, spacecraft personnel continue battling an issue with one of the vehicle’s two massive solar arrays. The Lucy spacecraft is designed to fly by eight different asteroids, most of them Trojans that circle the sun in the same orbit as Jupiter but ahead of or behind the massive planet. To complete that task, it will rely on two solar arrays, each more than 24 feet (7 meters) across. But when the spacecraft deployed the arrays after launch on Saturday…
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