If you’re in the path of totality for the April 8 total solar eclipse, you’ll experience a brief period of darkness — totality — for a few seconds or minutes. This is the only safe time to look directly at the sun without solar eclipse glasses. If you observe the sun‘s corona during totality, you may see dark-pink towers and loops of electrically charged plasma stretching many times the diameter of Earth into space. During the last total solar eclipse, in Australia on April 20, 2023, these “prominences” were spectacular…
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Our solar system
Satellites watch Iceland volcano spew gigantic plume of toxic gas across Europe
Scientists are tracking a massive plume of toxic gas moving across northern Europe that was spat out by the ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland. The gas cloud is unlikely to cause any serious health problems. However, it could impact the ozone hole above the Arctic, experts warn. On March 16, an underground volcano in Icealnd’s Reykjanes Peninsula blew its top for the fourth time in as many months, opening up the largest fissure of the current eruption cycle and unleashing a massive lava flow that narrowly missed the evacuated town of Grindavík. There…
Read MoreFlight attendant becomes 1st Belarusian woman in space on ISS-bound Soyuz launch
For the first time, a spacecraft has lifted off with a flight attendant aboard, but there will be no drink service during the flight. Marina Vasilevskaya, who also served as a flight instructor for Belavia Airlines in her home country of Belarus, traded her attendant uniform for a Russian Sokol pressure suit to become the first Belarusian woman to fly into space. On Saturday (March 23), she launched on Russia’s Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft with cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky of Roscosmos and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson on a mission to the…
Read MoreWatch shock waves ripple from SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket during 3rd test flight (video)
The incredible power SpaceX’s Starship megarocket can be visualized in a new video of the rocket’s third test flight. On March 14, SpaceX’s massive Starship vehicle — the world’s largest and most powerful rocket — lifted off from the company’s manufacturing and test launch facilities near Boca Chica Beach at 9:25 a.m. EDT (1325 GMT). During the launch, shock waves propagate from the rocket in a stunning new slow motion video. Large clouds of smoke billowed out around the two-stage spacecraft, consisting of the reusable Starship cruise vessel mounted atop…
Read MoreTexas Eclipse Festival offers a ‘choose your own adventure experience’ for April total solar eclipse
On April 8, 2024, a range of cities from Texas through Ohio and up to Maine will be in the direct path of experiencing a total solar eclipse. But instead of just having one day to take in the historic minutes while the sky goes dark, one festival will span for multiple days in Central Texas. What organizers are calling a “celestial creation,” the Texas Eclipse Festival at Reveille Peak Ranch in Burnet will be an entire experience where you will not just watch the total solar eclipse in the…
Read More‘Space headaches’ are a literal pain for astronauts. Why do they happen?
Spaceflight can be a real headache — literally. Since the days of the Apollo program, astronauts have reported experiencing head pain during their stint in microgravity. And many of them had never dealt with recurrent headaches on Earth. It seems that something about space travel sometimes triggers migraine or tension headache–like symptoms, including pain, sensitivity to light and occasionally nausea. Until recently, though, these reports were largely sporadic and anecdotal. Now a new study, published in Neurology on March 13, demonstrates that these mysterious “space headaches” are actually quite common. Researchers analyzed data from 24 astronauts who…
Read MoreAstronomers call for radio silence on the far side of the moon
There’s a growing and passionate call for preserving radio silence on the far side of the moon. A first-of-its-kind international symposium is being held this week, turning up the volume to mull over the prospect of protecting real estate on the moon’s far side exclusively for dedicated scientific purposes. Despite the moon being surrounding by a vacuum, there’s an air of urgency to the meeting. Held under the auspices of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), the first IAA Moon Farside Protection Symposium is taking place March 21-22 in Turin,…
Read MoreDying SpaceX rocket creates glowing, galaxy-like spiral in the middle of the Northern Lights
A massive swirl of bright white light seemingly appeared from out of nowhere in the night sky above the Arctic last week, briefly upstaging a vibrant aurora display that spanned thousands of miles. The ethereal, galaxy-shaped light show was caused by an illuminated cloud of frozen fuel that was dumped in space by a SpaceX rocket, which released dozens of satellites into low-Earth orbit. Astronomers call this rare phenomenon a “SpaceX spiral,” and expect them to become a much more common sight in the future. Related: Eerie blue spiral in…
Read MoreHistorical incidents of viewing total eclipses near the edge of totality
Of the 15 states that will be touched by the moon’s dark umbral shadow on April 8, no state is perhaps more enthused at the prospect of hosting the total solar eclipse than New York. Indeed, this will be the first time in 99 years that the path of totality will sweep across the Empire State, and the “I Love New York” campaign, used since 1977 to promote tourism in the state of New York, is going all out to attract prospective eclipse watchers from other parts of the country to “Come for the…
Read MoreSpaceX’s Starship could fly again as soon as early May
We might not have to wait too long to see the world’s most powerful rocket take to the skies again. That vehicle, SpaceX’s 400-foot-tall (122-meter-tall) Starship, conducted its third test flight last Thursday (March 14) from the company’s Starbase launch site in South Texas. Starship notched a number of important milestones on that mission, but both of its stages ended up breaking apart while descending through Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceX is still analyzing data from the flight. The results will inform preparations for Starship’s fourth flight, which could be just around…
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