Month: January 2024

Science Launches to Space Station on NASA’s 20th Northrop Grumman Mission

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6 Min Read Science Launches to Space Station on NASA’s 20th Northrop Grumman Mission iss067e156135 (July 28, 2022) — Northrop Grumman's Cygnus space freighter is positioned away from the International Space Station in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm prior to its release ending a four-month stay attached to the orbiting lab's Unity module. Credits: NASA Tests of a 3D metal printer, semiconductor manufacturing, and thermal protection systems for reentry to Earth’s atmosphere are among the scientific investigation that NASA and international partners are launching to the International Space…

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Career Journey: Cooking Up a Job as a Space Food Scientist

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As the Space Food Systems manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Xulei Wu works with a team to create tasty, shelf-stable meals for astronauts aboard the International Space Station and, soon, for crews flying to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. What does it take to become a space food scientist at NASA? We met up with Wu to learn more about her journey from creating meals for camping in the deep woods, to making foods for exploring deep space. Preparation Meets Opportunity “I don’t consider…

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Curious Kids: Why are some black holes bigger than others?

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This is an article from Curious Kids, a series aimed at children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky! This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Jaclyn Champagne, postdoctoral researcher, University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory.  Black holes are dense astronomical objects with gravity so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.  Anything that crosses the boundary of a black hole’s gravitational influence, called the…

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Welcome to the next step in smart telescope astronomy: Unistellar Odyssey

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On January 7 2024 Unistellar proudly unveiled the new Odyssey range of smart telescopes at the world’s biggest tech show, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024, held in Las Vegas. Smart telescopes are here, and they are here to stay — with numerous optics brands battling it out to come up with the very best smart telescope or intelligent home observation station. Unistellar boasts that the Odyssey stands out as the first smart telescope that can observe both nearby planets and objects situated tens of millions of lightyears away at…

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Decade-long Dark Energy Survey offers new insights into the expansion of the universe

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A survey of over 1,500 supernovas conducted by the Dark Energy Camera has placed strong constraints on the accelerating expansion of the universe.  The results suggest that the mysterious force that drives this cosmic acceleration, dark energy, may change over time, varying in density, which calls the standard model of cosmology into question. Related: Dark energy remains a mystery as Einstein’s theory of gravity passes another test The results were delivered by the largest sample of supernovas ever harvested by a single instrument as part of the Dark Energy Survey.…

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Starlink close encounters decrease despite ever-growing number of satellites

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SpaceX has reported that the number of close encounters between its satellites and other orbital objects has not increased in the past six months despite the constellation’s growth.  Space sustainability experts say the development is good news but warn the decrease in avoidance maneuvers is likely just a deviation from what has been a longer-term upward trend.  Twice a year, SpaceX reports to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) how many times its satellites had to change their paths to avoid possible collisions with other spacecraft and space debris. The…

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How do we know what the Milky Way looks like?

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Although our telescopes have captured some truly stunning images of the Milky Way, astronomers have only a vague understanding of our home galaxy. It took a lot of work even to get that sketch, and it’s amazing what we’ve been able to learn from our limited vantage point. Here on Earth’s surface, the Milky Way galaxy appears to the naked eye as a nebulous band across the sky. While astronomers and philosophers have debated the true nature and location of the Milky Way for ages, the great astronomer, physicist and…

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What would happen if Earth stopped spinning?

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Even though Earth is always spinning, we can’t feel it, and you probably take it for granted. But what would happen if it stopped? If Earth suddenly stopped spinning, it would be catastrophic. Almost everyone and everything not attached to the planet would continue to move at the current speed of Earth’s rotation, around 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h) at its fastest, which is along the equator. Related: 10 dramatic discoveries about Earth from 20  “The momentum of all the material that’s normally rotating — the water, the air, all the…

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New ‘Star Trek’ movie featuring Picard is on the way, Patrick Stewart says

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Patrick Stewart isn’t ready to give up being Jean-Luc Picard. The third season of the “Next Generation” spin-off “Picard” centered around the titular Starfleet captain ended in April of last year after successfully polarizing “Star Trek” fans. Many were turned off from the final season because it was very much a cookie-cutter carbon copy of the last two, relying heavily, once again, on attempting to remain suspenseful by applying a what’s-in-the-box?! style of storytelling.  But it turns out we may be seeing more of Jean-Luc. Stewart appeared recently on an…

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See a thin crescent moon meet up with Saturn tonight

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The thin crescent moon will meet up with the solar system’s second-largest planet, Saturn for the first time in 2024 on Sunday (Jan. 14), during a close approach between the two celestial bodies.  At the same time, the 3-day-old moon will move into an astronomical arrangement with Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, called a conjunction  —  which refers to the fact that the two bodies will have the same right ascension, or celestial equivalent of longitude.  During the close approach, the moon, which is just leaving its totally…

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