SpaceX’s Crew-3 astronauts depart space station for trip home

SpaceX’s Crew-3 astronaut mission is headed home to Earth. Crew-3’s Dragon capsule, named Endurance, undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday (May 5) at 1:20 a.m. EDT (0520 GMT), ending the mission’s six-month stay aboard the orbiting lab. Endurance and its four passengers — NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron and Raja Chari and Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency — have a roughly 24-hour space journey ahead of them for the trip to Earth. They’re scheduled to splash down off the Florida coast Friday (May 6) at…

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The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is the legacy of Halley’s Comet in May’s night sky

Do you remember Halley’s Comet? The last time this famous object was visible was in 1986, 36 years ago.  You younger readers might have little or no memory of this famous cosmic vagabond (It takes roughly 75 years to go once around the sun; your next chance will come in the summer of 2061). Or maybe, if you were around back then, you didn’t see Halley’s Comet at all because of light pollution or the comet’s low altitude above the horizon.  Either way, if you missed out on the 1986…

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Could we build the Millennium Falcon from ‘Star Wars’?

Illustrator Kemp Remillard detailed the interior of the Millennium Falcon.  (Image credit: Images from Star Wars: The Force Awakens™ Incredible Cross-Sections” reprinted by permission of DK, a division of Penguin Random House. Copyright © 2015 by Jason Fry and Kemp Remillard) With so many incredible, cutting-edge technologies, could we build a real-life Millennium Falcon? In short, no. But we’re getting closer. In the “Star Wars” universe, the Millennium Falcon is heralded as the coolest ship around. The cargo vessel that Han Solo originally won from Lando Calrissian in the Cloud City Sabacc…

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