‘The Book of Boba Fett’ season finale is pure ‘Star Wars,’ in all that’s both good and bad

Warning: Spoilers ahead for “The Book of Boba Fett” Episode 7 Everything that we’ve seen up to now in “The Book of Boba Fett” had been leading us to this moment, and it does not disappoint.  Episode 7 begins right where we left off last week as Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) and Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) pick their way through the burned out ruins of the Sanctuary bar that was destroyed by a bomb blast in a blatant act of war by the Pyke crime syndicate.…

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Solar Orbiter spacecraft captures huge eruption on the sun (video)

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft made a milestone observation in space as it captured a huge solar prominence, or eruption. It’s the largest such event ever observed in a single image along with the full solar disk and will add to the joint NASA-European mission to better understand solar activity, mission officials said in a statement. “Solar prominences are large structures of tangled magnetic field lines that keep dense concentrations of solar plasma suspended above the sun’s surface, sometimes taking the form of arching loops,” the European Space Agency (ESA) said…

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Star twinkles 18 times in new James Webb Space Telescope image

The James Webb Space Telescope finished the first major stage in its long process of aligning the observatory’s 18-segmented primary mirror. A single star that the observatory looked at was deliberately rendered 18 times into a hexagonal shape. Eventually, those 18 images will perfectly align into a single, sharp focus, but the interim result portrays a star repeated perfectly in a hexagonal pattern reminiscent of a stunning celestial snowflake. “The resulting image shows that the team has moved each of Webb’s 18 primary mirror segments to bring 18 unfocused copies of…

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This Week’s Sky at a Glance, February 18 – 26

With the Moon gone from the evening sky, trace out Monoceros the Unicorn walking behind Orion. Spot the famous binocular star clusters at his eye and horn-tip, and don’t miss M41 under Sirius. Meanwhile, the waning Moon, passes Venus, Mars and Mercury at dawn. The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, February 18 – 26 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

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Coca-Cola launches ‘Starlight’ limited-edition drink inspired by space

Coca-Cola is returning to space, in a new and different way. The iconic soft drink, which was one of the first carbonated beverages to be taste-tested by astronauts in orbit, is now attempting to bring the taste of space down to Earth as a first-of-its-kind, limited edition. “Coca-Cola Starlight,” as revealed on Thursday (Feb. 17), “combines great Coca-Cola taste with a dash of the unexpected, including a reddish hue,” the company said in a release. “Its taste includes additional notes reminiscent of stargazing around a campfire, as well as a…

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NASA opens Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge to help future moon missions

NASA wants your help to safely land future lunar spacecraft in the dark, including permanently shadowed craters that may be icy. The agency’s new Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge No. 1 plans to award as many as three prizes of up to $650,000 each. The challenge asks applicants to create sensors able to detect hazards from at least 820 feet (250 meters) high and to process the information as the landing is taking place, allowing for a safe touchdown. Registration is due May 5 and full applications are due May 19.…

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Fire-safety experiment among science gear launching to International Space Station this weekend

A Cygnus cargo ship launching toward the International Space Station (ISS) this weekend will carry an experiment designed to improve fire safety on moon and Mars missions. Called SoFIE (Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction), the experiment is the latest in a series of in-orbit investigations that look at how fire behaves in microgravity. SoFIE is part of a larger haul of science, supplies and hardware flying on Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus NG-17 resupply mission, which is scheduled to launch at 12:39 p.m. EST (1739 GMT) on Saturday (Feb. 19). “What we…

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