Category: Solar System

Our solar system

‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ returns to theaters later this year for 50th anniversary of Transylvanian aliens landing on Earth

NeRD

Forget tossing Milk Duds and Diet Cokes during “Minecraft: The Movie” multiplex viewings, the original audience participation flick “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is back in the news, celebrating its milestone 50th anniversary this year with a sparkling 4K UHD Blu-ray release en route for fans and special birthday screenings sometime later this year. Directed by Jim Sherman, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has become a cinematic cult classic that began life in London as a campy 1973 sci-fi horror stage musical written by eccentric actor Richard O’Brien. After a…

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India delays 1st Gaganyaan astronaut launch to 2027

NeRD

India now plans to launch astronauts to space no sooner than 2027, shifting the goal post for the country’s first human spaceflight yet again. Indian space minister Jitendra Singh announced the latest delay during a press conference Tuesday (May 6), running through the progress of India’s crewed spaceflight program and providing an updated timeline for its first Gaganyaan crewed missions. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is now targeting the first quarter of 2027 for its first astronaut launch, which was originally planned to fly in 2022. The landmark human…

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Our moon may have once been as hellish as Jupiter’s super volcanic moon Io

NeRD

The moon spent a few million years as a volcanic wasteland, covered with ongoing eruptions that spewed from mountains and even from the ground itself. New research suggests that the moon’s orbit could have turned it into a molten monster for a few tens of millions of years. The result may have been comparable to Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system. Early in the history of the solar system, a massive protoplanet plowed into a young Earth. The colliding material intermixed, then reformed into two…

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‘Gears of War: Reloaded’ chainsaws its way into Xbox, PS5, and PC this summer, and everyone will be playing together

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We’ve been recommending that you replay the best Gears of War games ahead of E-Day (the upcoming Rogue One-ish prequel) for a while, but now you have no excuse, as the original Gears of War is returning to consoles and PC with a new remaster, and this time it’s coming to PlayStation too. On May 5, The Coalition’s Mike Crump announced through the Xbox Wire blog that Marcus Fenix and his ragtag team of COG soldiers will take on the Locust Horde once again in Gears of War: Reloaded. We’re…

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Japan’s Resilience moon lander arrives in lunar orbit ahead of historic touchdown try

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A private Japanese lunar lander is now in orbit around the moon. The Resilience spacecraft, which was built by the Tokyo-based company ispace, arrived at the moon on schedule Tuesday (May 6), keeping it on target for a historic touchdown try a month from now. “First and foremost, we are extremely pleased that the Resilience lander successfully reached lunar orbit as planned today,” Takeshi Hakamada, ispace’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We will continue to proceed with careful operations and thorough preparations to ensure the success of the…

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Where does the universe’s gold come from? Giant flares from extreme magnetic stars offer a clue

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Scientists have finally gathered direct proof of how the universe forges its heaviest elements, a process that has remained a mystery for over half a century. A team from the Flatiron Institute in New York City calculated that giant flares emitted by magnetars — highly magnetic types of collapsed stars known as neutron stars — could be the long-sought cosmic forge that creates the universe’s heavy elements. Just one of these giant flares could produce a planet’s worth of gold, platinum, and uranium. “It’s pretty incredible to think that some…

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‘Right now, we are in what has to be a Golden Age of asteroid exploration.’ Scientists celebrate NASA’s latest space rock flyby

NeRD

BOULDER, Colorado — Asteroid experts are pondering the scientific output from the NASA Lucy spacecraft after it shot by its celestial destination — the main belt asteroid named Donaldjohanson. Here at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), lead organization for the Lucy mission, Hal Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy mission, said the spacecraft flyby of Donaldjohanson yielded a host of “don’t know” factors about the object. As for its shape, Levison said that Donaldjohanson and the other Lucy targets are providing hints about how planets formed. “These small body populations…

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NASA’s Artemis 2 moon rocket gets 2nd stage even as Trump tries to scrap Space Launch System (photos)

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The Artemis 2 megarocket set to launch NASA’s next astronauts to the moon in 2026 is almost completely assembled. The giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket continues to grow inside the NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida, stacked the rocket’s second stage onto the launch vehicle Thursday (May 1). The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) is responsible for carrying the Orion spacecraft and crew the rest of the way into orbit around the Earth, and then sending them on their way to…

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20 years ago, ‘Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith’ hit theaters… but 2 weeks earlier, the tie-in game had already spoiled the ending

NeRD

The year is 2005. I’m eagerly awaiting Revenge of the Sith, the Star Wars chapter that completes Anakin Skywalker’s journey. I don’t know that Episode VII will happen ten years later, so for me, this could be the final Star Wars movie I’ll get to see in theaters. There’s a twist, though; the tie-in video game adaptation arrives roughly two weeks before Episode III hits theaters, and it ruins the whole plot. What went wrong? Nothing, actually, as George Lucas didn’t care about spoilers getting out well in advance of…

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What time is it on the moon? US House space committee wants a standard lunar clock

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We are one step closer to getting a lunar time zone this week, as a bill passed out of the US House Science, Space and Technology committee directs the administrator of NASA to develop a way to coordinate and measure time on the moon. The bill is titled The Celestial Time Standardization Act (or HR 2313), and was passed out of committee by a voice vote on Tuesday (April 29). It now goes to the full House for a future floor vote. If it passes the House (and then the…

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