Category: Solar System

Our solar system

Watch the moon and bright star Spica meet in a celestial dance on May 9

NeRD

The bright star Spica will appear to dance around Earth’s moon on the night of May 9. Here’s how to catch the celestial pair at play ahead of next week’s full ‘Flower Moon’. Stargazers should look for the moon and Spica hanging above the eastern horizon on May 9 after sunset. The waxing gibbous moon will shine brightly, with just a thin crescent of shadow along its edge. Look to its lower left after 10 p.m. local time — once astronomical twilight fades, the bright star Spica will become easier…

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ZWO Seestar S30 all-in-one smart telescope review

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ZWO’s entry into the smart telescope market is the Seestar S30, a compact and highly portable instrument. This model is available in both 30-mm- and 50-mm-aperture versions, but this review focuses on the former, which comes at a recommended retail price of just $349. But is the Seestar S30 the bargain of the century, or do you get what you pay for? ZWO Seestar S30 All-in-One Smart Telescope: Design The Seestar S30 has a compact, minimal design. (Image credit: Future) ★★★★ Compact design Very quiet mechanism Small 30-mm aperture, with…

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Cosmic imposter bathes distant nebula in fiery red glow: ‘This star should not be here’

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A dazzling new image from the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile has revealed an unusual cosmic tale unfolding 6,000 light-years away in the Serpens constellation. The snapshot features the vivid red nebula Sh2-46 — also known as Gum 80 — lit up in a fiery hue due to intense radiation coming from a brilliant blue-white star nestled at its heart. The stellar behemoth is among the rarest and most luminous stars in the universe, wielding significant influence over its surroundings. Despite its dominant presence, astronomers believe this…

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

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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

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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

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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

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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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