Day: April 29, 2025

See a wafer-thin crescent moon leapfrog Jupiter this week

NeRD

The delicate form of the crescent moon is set to draw close to the planet Jupiter in the post-sunset sky on April 29, before later making its closest approach to the gas giant from the perspective of Earth on April 30. Earth’s moon is currently emerging from its April 27 new moon phase, during which it passed between the sun and Earth, causing its shadow-drenched disk to be temporarily lost from sight in the sun‘s glare. In the coming days the moon will form a waxing crescent, which will grow…

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In the Starlight: Jason Phillips’ Unexpected Path to Johnson Procurement

NeRD

Sometimes an unexpected turn in a carefully planned career path leads to surprising opportunities for growth and exciting new experiences. For Jason Phillips, that turn steered toward NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Official portrait of Jason Phillips. NASA/Bill Stafford Phillips joined the U.S. Air Force in 1994 and planned to serve for at least 20 years, but in 2010—while preparing for a third deployment after 14 years of service—he found himself facing a medical separation from the military. “In a very short amount of time I had to figure…

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40-year-old spy satellite photos are helping find forgotten land mines in Cambodia

NeRD

Declassified images from U.S. military satellites are helping find forgotten mine fields in Cambodia. From the late 1960s almost until the end of the 1990s, a bloody war between communist groups and democracy defenders raged, with a few short breaks, in the jungles and on the rice fields of Cambodia. The conflict left behind a hidden legacy that keeps increasing the war’s death toll to this day. Over 10 million anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines and other explosives may have been scattered across Cambodia’s land during the decades of fighting. Over…

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Brand-new Falcon 9 rocket sends 23 Starlink satellites to orbit on SpaceX’s 2nd launch of the day

NeRD

SpaceX sent another batch of Starlink satellites to orbit tonight (April 28), its second liftoff of the day. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink broadband satellites — including 13 with direct-to-cell capability — lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida tonight at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT on April 29). It was the second Starlink group to fly today; a Falcon 9 lofted 27 of the internet craft from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base earlier today. You may like The Falcon 9’s first stage rests on the…

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