Month: August 2023

NASA test-fires rocket motors that will help launch samples off Mars (video)

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NASA has test-fired rocket motors as part of the development of an ascent vehicle designed to launch samples off the Red Planet. NASA and its contractors are developing the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) for the NASA-European Space Agency Mars Sample Return mission campaign. The MAV is designed to get samples collected on Mars into orbit above the Red Planet, where they’ll be grabbed by a spacecraft that will haul them to Earth. The MAV, which is planned to be the first rocket ever to launch from another planet, is a…

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Win a free ‘Asteroid City’ Blu-ray and more in this Facebook giveaway!

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Director Wes Anderson’s satirical period piece “Asteroid City” lands on Digital today (Aug. 11) and on Blu-ray and DVD on Aug. 15 from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. To celebrate the home video release, Space.com and Universal are uniting to offer a chance to win some exclusive “Asteroid City” merchandise and here’s how you can get in on all the science fiction-themed freebie action. To enter the giveaway for these cool “Asteroid City” items that include a themed lunchbox set, alien key chain, postcard, patch or “Asteroid City” Blu-ray set, all…

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Russia launches Luna-25 moon lander, its 1st lunar probe in 47 years

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Russia reignited its moon exploration program today (Aug. 10), sending a lander toward Earth’s nearest neighbor. The Luna-25 mission lifted off today at 7:10 p.m. EDT (2310 GMT) atop a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far eastern Amur Region. The launch picked up where the former Soviet Union left off in 1976, when Luna-24 successfully delivered about 6.2 ounces (170 grams) of moon samples to Earth. But that was then. Luna-25 is the first domestically produced moon probe in modern Russian history.  If all goes according to…

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Watch a trippy trailer for ‘Strange Planet,’ a bizarre animated sci-fi show on Apple TV+

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Our big, blue Earth is certainly complicated enough with our crazy array of customs, rituals and day-to-day routines, so one can only imagine the incomprehensible existences of alien cultures far more advanced than our own living out their humble lives millions of light-years away. But do these beings have more or less similarities? Leaping into the burgeoning arena of adult animation, Apple TV+ just released the first trailer for its new slice-of-life sci-fi series, “Strange Planet,” which presents an absurdist view of everyday occurrences among the humanoid inhabitants of a…

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The 2023 Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend! Here’s what you need to know.

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The Perseid meteor shower will peak this weekend as Earth makes a yearly dive through debris left behind by a Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. The peak activity of the Perseid meteor shower will occur around 04:00 EDT (0800 GMT) on Sunday. Aug. 13. The Perseids are a yearly highlight for meteor hunters who, in the right conditions, could see as many as 100 fireballs and light trails per hour from the meteor shower, according to the Royal Museums Greenwich, with even more potentially visible at the shower’s peak. This year the Perseid…

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