Storm chasers caught terrifying footage from inside the eye of Hurricane Lee on Friday (Sept. 8). The footage of the hurricane shows lightning crackling throughout the storm as its jet-black eye looms ominously overhead. The video was shot by the U.S. Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in Biloxi, Mississippi, known as the “Hurricane Hunters.” The video was published by the U.S. Department of Defense on Friday (song “Broken Glass” by Logan Spaleta added by Space.com). Hurricane Lee is currently a Category 4 storm, meaning it features sustained winds…
Read MoreMonth: September 2023
Ultra-powerful space explosion, 1st of its kind, may have been triggered by black hole star-destroyer
An example of an entirely new type of cosmic explosion that vastly outpowers most supernovas could be the result of a small or medium-sized black hole destroying a star. The explosion, which has been named AT2022aedm, was seen emerging from a red galaxy located around 2 billion light-years from Earth by astronomers using the ATLAS network of robotic telescopes located in Hawaii, Chile, and South Africa. It was quickly recognized as something never seen before. “We’re always on the lookout for things that are a bit weird and different from…
Read MoreOpening the Hatch: Crew-6 Splashdown
Support teams onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN work to open the hatch of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft shortly after it landed in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 4, 2023, with NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev aboard.
Read MoreNASA, International Astronauts to Speak with Students in Two States
Students from North Carolina and Rhode Island will have separate opportunities next week to hear from astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Read MoreSpaceX’s Starship rocket spotted from space ahead of key test flight (satellite photo)
Starship even looks big from space. SpaceX stacked its latest Starship vehicle on Tuesday (Sept. 5), lifting an upper-stage prototype called Ship 25 atop a first stage variant known as Booster 9 on the orbital launch mount at Starbase, the company’s site in South Texas. That same day, Maxar Technologies’ WorldView-1 satellite captured a great photo of the newly stacked rocket, which stands nearly 400 feet (122 meters) tall — and Maxar posted the shot on X (formerly known as Twitter) for all of us to see. Related: Relive SpaceX’s explosive 1st…
Read MoreWarp into Star Trek Day 2023 today with new animated ‘very Short Treks’
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the underrated “Star Trek: The Animated Series,” which launched back in 1973 on NBC for just two seasons as a sophisticated Saturday morning cartoon with serious storytelling onboard courtesy of executive producers Gene Roddenberry and “The Original Series” writer D.C. Fontana. To fortify CBS Studios and Paramount’s official “Star Trek” Day 2023 celebrations on Friday, Sept. 8, “Trek” fans will have one more reason to cheer as the studio honors “50 Years of Star Trek Animation” with newly-minted “Star Trek: very Short Treks.”…
Read MoreVirgin Galactic will launch some of its 1st space tourist customers on ‘Galactic 03’ flight Friday. But who’s flying?
Virgin Galactic plans to launch its third commercial spaceflight on Friday (Sept. 8), but you won’t be able to watch the action live. The company is targeting Friday morning for the liftoff of the Galactic 03 mission, which will send three paying customers aloft from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Liftoff will occur around the same as Virgin Galactic‘s previous missions, company officials told Space.com via email — so, about 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT). But Galactic 03 won’t be livestreamed; we’ll have to rely on updates that Virgin Galactic…
Read MoreNow Home on Earth, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 to Discuss Space, Science
The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission will discuss their six-month science mission aboard the International Space Station during a news conference at 2:15 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Sept. 12, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Read MoreHubble Sees Glittering Globular Cluster Embedded Inside Our Milky Way
Hubble’s colorful image of the globular star cluster Terzan 12 is a spectacular example of how dust in space affects starlight coming from background objects.
Read MoreUS test launches unarmed ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base
The United States conducted another routine test of its nuclear deterrent system by launching an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile. The unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 1:26 a.m. local Pacific time (0526 GMT) on Sept. 6. The test launch saw the missile deploy three undisclosed reentry vehicles that splashed down into the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands some 4,200 miles (6,760 km) away. Col. Bryan Titus, vice commander of Space Launch Delta 30, oversaw the launch on behalf…
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