Month: January 2025

NASA Juno Mission Spots Most Powerful Volcanic Activity on Io to Date

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5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) A massive hotspot — larger the Earth’s Lake Superior — can be seen just to the right of Io’s south pole in this annotated image taken by the JIRAM infrared imager aboard NASA’s Juno on Dec. 27, 2024, during the spacecraft’s flyby of the Jovian moon. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM Even by the standards of Io, the most volcanic celestial body in the solar system, recent events observed on the Jovian moon are extreme. Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission have discovered a…

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What time is Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ‘moon gravity’ launch on Jan. 28? Here’s how to watch live

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Blue Origin will launch its first suborbital rocket launch of 2025 this week — and attempt a wild spin trick to mimic the moon’s gravity during the flight — but if you want to see it live, you’ll need to know when and where to tune in. An uncrewed New Shepard rocket will launch the so-called NS-29 mission no earlier than Tuesday, Jan. 28, at 11:30 a.m. EST (10:30 a.m. CST/1630 GMT) from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. The mission will launch 30 different experiments, most of…

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NASA to Preview Sky-Mapping Space Telescope Ahead of Launch

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NASA’s SPHEREx space observatory was photographed at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, in November 2024 after completing environmental testing. The spacecraft’s three concentric cones help direct heat and light away from the telescope and other components, keeping them cool. Credit: BAE Systems NASA will host a news conference at 12 p.m. EST Friday, Jan. 31, to discuss a new telescope that will improve our understanding of how the universe evolved and search for key ingredients for life in our galaxy. Agency experts will preview NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History…

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Supermassive black holes in ‘little red dot’ galaxies are 1,000 times larger than they should be, and astronomers don’t know why

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Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered distant, overly massive supermassive black holes in the early universe. The black holes seem way too massive compared to the mass of the stars in the galaxies that host them. In the modern universe, for galaxies close to our own Milky Way, supermassive black holes tend to have masses equal to around 0.01% of the stellar mass of their host galaxy. Thus, for every 10,000 solar masses attributed to stars in a galaxy, there is around one solar mass of…

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Station Science Top News: Jan. 24, 2025

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Reducing reliance on resupply missions Resupply of life support elements such as air, water, food, clothing, and hygiene items will be impractical on missions to the Moon and beyond. This research assessed current use and resupply of these elements on the International Space Station and outlines technologies needed for sustained human presence in space, such as 3D printing maintenance parts, systems for laundering clothes, and improved recovery and recycling of elements. Researchers analyzed the types and mass of elements supplied from Earth to the station and astronaut feedback from various…

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India’s space agency completes 1st Gaganyaan astronaut crew capsule

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The capsule that will one day ferry Indian astronauts to space and return them to Earth has been fitted with the key technology required for the task — marking another milestone in the country’s pursuit to develop homegrown technology for independent human spaceflight capabilities. The country’s space agency, Indian Space Research Organization, announced on Wednesday (Jan. 22) that its Bengaluru center completed assembling the Gaganyaan crew module and equipping it with a liquid propulsion system, which is responsible for generating the thrust needed to control the capsule’s orientation and trajectory.…

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Get My Good Side

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NASA/Ben Smegelsky A NASA photographer took this portrait of a curious sandhill crane on March 24, 2021, near the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Sandhill cranes are just one of the hundreds of types of birds that call the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which shares space with NASA Kennedy, their home. See more photos of birds at NASA Kennedy. Image credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

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‘Star Trek: Section 31’ has a huge surprise celebrity cameo at the end

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No matter what side of the galaxy you’re on regarding your opinion of Paramount+’s first-ever direct-to-streaming “Star Trek” film, “Section 31,” we can at least all agree (hopefully) that the fun cameo at the very end of the movie was unexpectedly amusing and does leave an opening for a potential sequel. Spoilers ahead: If you haven’t seen the movie yet, check out our How to watch Star Trek: Section 31 guide for more info. That specific scene occurs when Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) and her motley crew of black…

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Earth is bombarded with rocks from space — but who gets to keep these ultimate antiques?

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Every day, about 48.5 tons of space rock hurtle towards Earth. Meteorites that fall into the ocean are never recovered. But the ones that crash on land can spark debates about legal ownership. Globally, meteorite hunting has become a lucrative business, with chunks of alien rock traded online and shipped between countries. Meteorites hold the key to the mysteries of the universe, but increasingly, significant scientific finds are being lost to private collectors. Last year, New Zealand formally recorded an apple-sized meteorite weighing 810g. It fell on Department of Conservation…

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US military practices rescuing astronauts from the sea (photos)

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A U.S. military joint task force did some training recently off the Florida coast to help with astronaut splashdowns. “Space travel is expected to increase, so the search and rescue alert is going to increase, and we will be ready to answer that call,” Maj. Ryan Schieber, lead planner for Human Space Flight Support (HSFS) in the U.S. Air Force’s 315th Operations Support Squadron, said in a statement. So, as the U.S. sees an uptick in crewed spaceflight operations, the military wants to make sure it can support astronaut retrieval…

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