Category: Solar System

Our solar system

See the moon and Venus take a sunset stroll through the night sky tonight

NeRD

Wednesday evening will be another one of those special occasions when the two brightest objects in the night sky will get together and likely will attract a lot of attention, even from those who normally do not spend much time gazing up at the sky. If you face south-southwest about 45 minutes after sunset during mid-twilight you’ll see a beautiful crescent moon. And floating about 3 degrees above it will be the dazzling Evening Star: the planet Venus. Remember that your clenched fist is roughly equal to 10 degrees when…

Read More

Watch Europe’s Vega-C rocket launch today on 1st flight since 2022 (video)

NeRD

Watch live! Vega-C rocket to launch Sentinel-1C satellite in return to flight – YouTube Watch On For the first time since the launch vehicle’s catastrophic mission failure in 2022, Europe’s Vega-C rocket is poised to return to flight today. The European Space Agency (ESA) is scheduled to launch the Copernicus Sentinel-1C satellite today, lifting off from Kourou, French Guiana, during an instantaneous launch window Dec. 4, at 4:20 p.m. EST (2120 GMT, 22:20 CET — local time). This will be the third mission for ESA’s medium-lift rocket, and its first…

Read More

Handle on history: Knives embedded with rocket parts honor 45 years of Ariane launches

NeRD

A French company that crafts knife handles from leftover rocket metal and the wood from trees surrounding the rocket’s launch pad has created a limited-edition piece celebrating the anniversary of Europe’s venerable expendable heavy-lift vehicle. SpacePep’s has introduced its “45 Years of Ariane” folding knife. Each of the 100 individually-numbered knives is made with metal from the production of an Ariane 5 rocket, which is embedded in the snakewood handle. “It was indeed on Dec. 24, 1979, that the first Ariane launcher in history took off from the ELA1 launch…

Read More

Mysterious fast radio bursts could be caused by asteroids slamming into dead stars

NeRD

Scientists have discovered that mysterious blasts of energy called fast radio bursts (FRBs) may be created when asteroids slam into ultradense extreme dead stars called neutron stars. Such a collision releases enough energy to supply humanity’s power needs for 100 million years! FRBs are transient pulses of radio waves that can last from a fraction of a millisecond to a few seconds. In this period, an FRB can release the same amount of energy that it would take the sun several days to radiate. The first FRB was observed in…

Read More

Could dark matter have been forged in a ‘Dark Big Bang?’

NeRD

Our common understanding of the universe tells us that all matter and energy were created at the beginning of time during a period of rapid inflation called the Big Bang. However, in 2023, Katherine Freese, director of the Texas Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, and Martin Wolfgang Winkler of the University of Texas suggested a radical new idea: a “second Big Bang.” This “Dark Big Bang” would have given rise to the universe’s most mysterious “stuff,” known as dark matter. Now, two scientists from Colgate University have expanded on…

Read More

Cyber Monday Meta Quest 3 deal: Get a free Batman game and a three-month trial of Meta Quest Plus.

NeRD

There’s a Cyber Monday Meta Quest 3 deal available and you’ve still got time to get it: A free game and a free three-month trial of Meta Quest+ included. We love the Quest 3 and it sits at the top of our best VR headset deals guide. Get Batman: Arkham Shadow and a three-month free trial of Meta Quest+: Included with the Meta Quest 3. You can check out our Meta Quest 3 review for a more in-depth look at it but we found that it’s the best overall VR…

Read More

China reveals secrets of 1st sample taken from the far side of the moon — and it contains a volcanic surprise

NeRD

The first analysis of lava samples from the moon’s far side reveals that volcanoes were erupting there 2.8 billion years ago. The moon is tidally locked with Earth, meaning the same side always faces our planet. The far side is less explored than the near side. Only two landers, both from China, have made it to the moon’s far side. In a study published Nov. 15 in the journal Science, researchers analyzed rock samples returned to Earth by the Chang’e 6 lander. The 2024 mission brought back a little over…

Read More

Hubble Telescope peeks at star with planet-forming disk that gets 3 times hotter than the sun

NeRD

A star about 1,360 light-years away from Earth, named FU Orionis, is twice as hot as astronomers previously suspected, according to recent data from the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, scientists believe that the region where FU Orionis’s planet-forming disk touches the star’s surface glows at around 16,000 Kelvin — three times hotter than the surface of our sun. Caltech astronomer Adolfo Carvalho and his colleagues suggest the area around the star is so surprisingly hot because a rapidly-spinning disk of material falling into the star is actually scraping against…

Read More

Declassified spy satellite images reveal 1,400-year-old battle site in Iraq that set off the Muslim conquest

NeRD

Declassified spy images of Iraq have helped archaeologists find a historic Islamic battlefield. Upon analyzing the images, which were taken in 1973 by a U.S. satellite system named KH-9 (Hexagon), the team found remnants of a 1,400-year-old settlement. This helped them match the site to the lost location of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, the researchers reported in a study published Nov. 12 in the journal Antiquity. The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah took place in A.D. 636 or 637 between the Arab Muslim army and the Sasanian Empire, which ruled the area…

Read More

Huge PSVR 2 headset Cyber Monday deal: Save $200

NeRD

You can get a sizable saving of 37% on the PSVR 2 headset this Cyber Monday as it’s now its lowest-ever price and it features in our best VR headsets guide. Save $200 (37%) on the PSVR 2 headset when you grab it from Amazon this Cyber Monday. You can get it for the same price at Best Buy and Walmart too. If you own a PlayStation and you want to explore the world of virtual reality, this is definitely the Cyber Monday deal you’re searching for. In our PSVR…

Read More