Month: June 2023

Debris from missing submersible found near Titanic, crew of 5 — including space tourist — presumed dead

NeRD

The search for the missing Titanic submersible is over, and the story does not have a happy ending. The 22-foot-long (6.7 meters) vehicle, named Titan, went missing on Sunday (June 18) with five people on board while on a dive to explore the wreck of the Titanic. Rescue and recovery teams have worked feverishly over the past five days to find signs of the submersible, and they encountered some today (June 22).  “This morning, an ROV, or remote operated vehicle, from the vessel Horizon Arctic discovered the tail cone of…

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Watch SpaceX launch 56 Starlink satellites on June 23

NeRD

SpaceX will send another set of its Starlink satellites to space on Friday (June 23) and you can watch the whole thing live for free. SpaceX plans to send 56 Starlink satellites aloft at 9:56 a.m. EDT (1356 GMT) atop a Falcon 9 rocket. When livestream information is available, Space.com will post it here for you to watch. The Falcon 9 will lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, with the first stage coming down eight minutes later on a nearby drone ship…

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This Week in NASA History: First Crewed Skylab Mission – May 25, 1973

NeRD

This week in 1973, the first crewed Skylab mission launched aboard a Saturn IB from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Astronauts Charles Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joseph Kerwin docked with Skylab on the fifth orbit. The crew conducted solar astronomy, Earth resources experiments, medical studies and five experiments, and performed three spacewalks. They doubled the previous length of time in space over the course of their 28-day mission. Here, the Skylab Orbital Workshop is seen as the crew departs and performs the final fly-around inspection. Today, the Payload Operations Integration Center…

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‘Star Trek: Infinite’ lets gamers explore strange new worlds and wage epic space battles

NeRD

Trek fans have a new opportunity to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations and to boldly go where no gamer has gone before. But will you join the United Federation of Planets or the Klingon Empire?  As recently announced on Picard Day, June 16, 2023, Nimble Giant Entertainment (“Quantum League,” “Master of Orion”) and Paradox Interactive are releasing a new sci-fi strategy gaming experience for PC this fall titled “Star Trek: Infinite” that allows imaginative players to craft their own “Star Trek” journey as…

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Watch sunlight dance across Earth from solstice to solstice in this gorgeous video

NeRD

An amazing new video demonstrates how Earth’s tilt changes throughout the year, causing days to lengthen and shorten from north to south as the planet orbits the sun. The Northern Hemisphere is experiencing the longest day of the year as our planet reached the moment of the summer solstice today, June 21, at 10:57 a.m. EDT (1457 GMT). The summer solstice is the moment when the Earth‘s Northern Hemisphere is most tilted toward the sun, therefore receiving the maximum amount of sunlight during the day. That means the day is…

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The Milky Way’s monster black hole let out a huge blast 200 years ago. We can now listen to its echo (video)

NeRD

The supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy woke up and unleashed a fierce outburst of X-rays around the turn of the 19th century, according to new observations of the ‘echoes’ of the event. Astronomers have noticed that immense clouds of star-forming molecular gas that inhabit the central region of the Milky Way galaxy shine brighter in X-rays than expected. One possible explanation put forward was that this X-ray light was not intrinsic to the gas clouds, but was being reflected off of them following an…

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