India’s first launch of 2022 will send a new Earth observation satellite to space after a sibling satellite was lost in a failed launch last year. You can watch the launch of the EOS-04 satellite live on Sunday (Feb. 13) at 7:29 p.m. EST (0029 GMT or 6:29 p.m. local time Monday, Feb. 14), assuming that the mission blasts off on time. You can watch the launch live on this page, as well as on the ISRO website and YouTube channel . The livestream generally turns on a few minutes…
Read MoreMonth: February 2022
The out-of-control rocket about to hit the moon is not a SpaceX Falcon 9, astronomers now say: report
See the SpaceX booster? If you spot the booster in a telescope before it hits the moon, let us know! Send images and comments in to spacephotos@space.com. A rocket stage set to hit the moon March 4 might not be from SpaceX after all. The astronomer credited with discovering the forthcoming impact, Bill Gray, announced Saturday (Feb. 12) that he made an error in identifying the rocket as an old SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage that helped launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite in 2015. Rather, Gray suggests the…
Read MoreWhat would a Super Bowl on Mars look like? Spacesuits and lower gravity for sure (video)
Ever wonder if it’d be possible to play football on Mars? The short answer is yes! In a new video from NBCLX, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno and NBC sports producer Brad Fosler explain what Super Bowl LVI would look like on Mars as Los Angeles Rams face off against the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California today. The first obstacle: getting players to the Red Planet. “We can only fly to Mars once every 26 months, when our two planets are just passing each other in…
Read More‘Futurama’ scores a fresh Hulu reboot with original vocal cast on board
Rocketing back onto the airwaves, Variety announced this week that the cult sci-fi animated series “Futurama” will be resurrected once more on the Hulu streaming platform. Along with the joyful news comes word from 20th Television Animation and Hulu Originals that the 20-episode revival will be headed up by the original series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. Nearly all of the legacy vocal cast members have signed on to the project like Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and David Herman. The…
Read MoreLargest comet ever observed bumps Hale-Bopp from pedestal
The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, identified in 2021, is officially the biggest comet ever observed. The new record, reported on the preprint website arXiv and now accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, bumps the Hale-Bopp comet from the top spot. Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995 and became visible to the naked eye in 1996; it was about 46 miles (74 kilometers) across. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, also known as comet 2014 UN271, has now been calculated to be about 85 miles (137 km) across. The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet is named after…
Read MoreWatch NASA’s huge SLS rocket for the Artemis 1 moon mission come together in this epic time-lapse video
We love it when a rocket comes together. In October 2021, NASA finished stacking the huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for its Artemis 1 moon mission inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. That was a big milestone for the agency and its moon-exploration plans, and a newly released time-lapse video captures the process for posterity. The two-minute video, which NASA released on Wednesday (Feb. 9), shows the many steps required to assemble the 322-foot-tall (98 meters) SLS, which consists of a central…
Read More‘Holy cow!’ How the James Webb Space Telescope took a selfie in space
We’ve just seen the first up-close view of the James Webb Space Telescope hard at work in deep space. A special lens within the telescope’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam) instrument allowed engineers to take a look at Webb’s mirror alignment and to generate a cool view of the telescope, all at the same time. Engineers now also have the assurance that NIRCam is successfully receiving light, which is crucial for its ultimate goal of helping to image objects in space. “I think pretty much the reaction [to the selfie] was, ‘Holy…
Read MoreWhat happened before the Big Bang?
In the beginning, there was an infinitely dense, tiny ball of matter. Then, it all went bang, giving rise to the atoms, molecules, stars and galaxies we see today. Or at least, that’s what we’ve been told by physicists for the past several decades. But new theoretical physics research has recently revealed a possible window into the very early universe, showing that it may not be “very early” after all. Instead it may be just the latest iteration of a bang-bounce cycle that has been going on for … well,…
Read MoreFAQ: The International Space Station 2022 Transition Plan
Find answers to frequently asked questions about station transition and deorbit.
Read MoreSpaceX’s new Starship video animation is Tron meets Blade Runner in space
A stunning SpaceX animation released Thursday (Feb. 10) shows the Starship system on a future voyage to Mars. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk released the five-minute video during the program’s first major update since 2019. He spoke of the fully stacked Starship ready for an orbital trip in (he expects) later 2022 and his hopes to reduce Mars launch costs through frequent liftoffs of Starship and its accompanying Super Heavy rocket. Starship, Musk said in the livestreamed address, “is capable of getting getting a million tons to the surface of Mars,…
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