A month after its latest liftoff, SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket is getting ready to fly again. Starship launched Nov. 18 on its second-ever test mission, which ended in two spectacular explosions. But the company, as ever, is gearing up for the next try. “Flight 3 vehicles on the pad at Starbase for testing ahead of Starship‘s next launch,” SpaceX wrote today (Dec. 18) in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that shared three photos of the spacecraft involved. (Starbase is SpaceX’s South Texas site, which serves as the…
Read MoreMonth: December 2023
Watch Blue Origin launch 1st mission in 15 months today
Blue Origin will launch its first mission in more than 15 months this morning (Dec. 18), and you can watch the action live. Blue Origin‘s New Shepard suborbital vehicle is scheduled to lift off from the company’s West Texas site today during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT; 8:30 a.m. local Texas time). You can watch the action live via Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Space.com will carry the company’s feed if possible. Coverage will begin at 9:10 a.m. EST (1410…
Read MoreHow many times has Earth orbited the sun?
When you’re standing on Earth’s surface, it’s easy to forget that our planet is hurtling around the sun at more than 67,000 mph (107,800 km/h). And it’s even easier to forget that there are seven other planets also making their way around our home star at similar breakneck speeds, or that all eight have been ceaselessly circling the solar system for billions of years. But what might really blow your mind is finding out how many trips around the sun each planet has under its belt. This may seem like…
Read MoreA star exploded 10,000 years ago and left us with the gorgeous Veil Nebula (photo)
Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical “Skyscapes” that connect both Earth and the night sky. The Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop, was created when a massive star went supernova and exploded some 10,000 years ago in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan, about 1,400 light-years away. The Veil Nebula…
Read MoreDream Chaser Undergoes Testing at NASA Test Facility in Ohio
1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA and Sierra Space are preparing for the first flight of the company’s Dream Chaser spacecraft to the International Space Station. Dream Chaser and its companion cargo module, called Shooting Star, arrived at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, for environmental testing, scheduled to start in mid-December, ahead of its first flight, scheduled for the first half of 2024. Credit: Sierra Space/Shay Saldana More About Dream Chaser in Ohio Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Commercial…
Read MoreThis Week In Space podcast: Episode 91 — 2023 Holiday Special!
On Episode 91 of This Week In Space, Tariq and Rod discuss the year in review with Leonard David. This holiday special episode of This Week in Space covers a wide range of space topics from 2023, including asteroid sample return, China’s space achievements, commercial lunar landers, Mars sample return challenges, UFO disclosure, and more. Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Space news of the week Model Falcon 9! Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket…
Read MoreMace Windu honors Qui-Gon’s final mission in upcoming ‘Star Wars: The Glass Abyss’ novel
The Jedi Knight Mace Windu doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his valiant deeds in the “Star Wars” universe, even after decapitating Jango Fett in “Attack of the Clones” and then almost vanquishing Chancellor Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious) before Anakin intervened and Windu was chucked out the window in “Revenge of the Sith.” Now the skilled, purple-lightsabered warrior played by Samuel L. Jackson shines in “Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss,” his very own solo novel coming next summer. The book sees Windu taking up arms to complete Qui-Gon…
Read MoreSome UFO records must be released, US Congress says
The United States Congress just passed legislation that directs the U.S. government to release records related to UFOs. Some UFO records, anyway. According to new provisions in the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the law that funds the U.S. military and related activities, the U.S. National Archives must collect for release all documents that “pertain to unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence.” None of those terms is defined in the bill, however. “Unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP, is a relatively a newly adopted and…
Read MoreSpaceX Falcon Heavy launch of X-37B space plane now targeted for Dec. 28
SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket will fly again before the end of the year, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX is now targeting Dec. 28 for the launch of the U.S. Space Force‘s X-37B space plane, which will fly atop a Falcon Heavy from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. You can watch the action here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, when the time comes. Related: The Space Force’s secretive X-37B space plane: 10 surprising facts SpaceX had originally planned to launch the robotic X-37B on Dec. 11. But…
Read MoreHow the songs of stars can help perfect Gaia’s sweeping map of our galaxy
Astronomers have developed a new way of measuring cosmic distances by listening to the frequencies of “music” played by vibrating stars that collectively act as a vast orchestra of different cosmic instruments. The results could help the European Space Agency (ESA) satellite Gaia better measure the positions of about two billion stars as well as their distances from Earth and movements while building a precise, 3-dimensional map of the Milky Way. Scientists typically use a process called parallax, the apparent shift in an object’s position when seen from two different…
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