Category: The Moon

Our moon

Big news! ‘The Orville’ is getting a 4th season, actor confirms

NeRD

At the recent “Star Trek” Las Vegas convention, actor Scott Grimes, who plays Lt. Gordon Malloy on “The Orville,” revealed to a small — and stunned — crowd that season 4 of the show is set to begin pre-production at some point early in 2025.  Absolutely no one was expecting this, so no video of the big announcement seems to exist on social media. But it has been confirmed on The Planetary Union Network: ‘The Orville‘ Official Fan Podcast. Moreover, that same group wrote on Reddit, “Seth [MacFarlane, the show’s…

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Mars Express orbiter takes a deep dive into ancient Red Planet lake (images)

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 A Mars orbiter has just taken a “deep dive” into an ancient Martian lake, figuratively, at least.  Larger than any lake currently on Earth, the dried-up remnants of this ancient lakebed were just captured in incredible detail by the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003. “This patch of Mars — shown in a new view from Mars Express’s High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) — is known as Caralis Chaos,” ESA scientists wrote in a statement. “We believe that water, and a…

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These nearby star systems could be good targets in the search for alien life

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NASA‘s Chandra X-ray space telescope has created a three-dimensional map of stars close to the sun that may help astronomers search for alien planets that could host life. The map created by Chandra — which just celebrated 25 years in orbit but is facing a troubling budget crunch — could inform scientists which exoplanets to direct future telescopes toward to conduct searches for habitable conditions. The stars mapped by the telescope are arranged in concentric rings around the sun, at distances between 16.3 light-years and 49 light-years. This is close…

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SpaceX targeting Aug. 26 for historic Polaris Dawn astronaut mission

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SpaceX is now targeting Aug. 26 for the launch of Polaris Dawn, a crewed flight to Earth orbit that will feature the first-ever private spacewalk. The news, which the Polaris Dawn team announced today (Aug. 7) via a post on X, firms up a previously vague window; the most recent target for the groundbreaking mission was mid-August. Polaris Dawn will send four people to Earth orbit aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which will lift off from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The crew…

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SpaceX Crew-9 astronaut mission: Live updates

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Refresh 2024-08-07T19:48:05.208Z SpaceX Crew-9 may bring home Starliner astronauts Boeing Starliner may not bring its first astronauts home after all. NASA officials, absent a representative from Boeing, updated reporters today (Aug. 7) about how troubleshooting Starliner‘s undocking and landing may affect the next SpaceX astronaut flight to the International Space Station.  Starliner has faced a lot of difficulties since launching its first astronaut mission, most especially after 5 of its 28 reaction control thrusters (RCS) misfired during docking with the ISS on June 6. Work on the matter is ongoing, and…

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NASA considers sending Boeing Starliner astronauts home on SpaceX Dragon

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Boeing Starliner may not bring its first astronauts home after all. NASA officials, absent a representative from Boeing, updated reporters today (Aug. 7) about how troubleshooting Starliner‘s undocking and landing may affect the next SpaceX astronaut flight to the International Space Station.  Starliner has faced a lot of difficulties since launching its first astronaut mission, most especially after 5 of its 28 reaction control thrusters (RCS) misfired during docking with the ISS on June 6. Work on the matter is ongoing, and as NASA revealed yesterday (Aug. 6), it will require…

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Stellar oddball: Nearby star rotates unlike any other

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A nearby star that’s similar to the sun in many ways is actually an unprecedented oddball, astronomers have discovered. The surprising star is V889 Herculis, located 115 light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. This otherwise sun-like young star spins in a way that astronomers have never seen before and could challenge our model of stellar rotation, which scientists had thought was well understood. Stars are roiling balls of superheated gas or plasma, meaning they don’t rotate like solid bodies. Instead, they display differential rotation; some layers move at different…

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SpaceX’s Crew-9 astronaut launch delayed to Sept. 24 due to Boeing Starliner issues

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SpaceX‘s next astronaut mission won’t get off the ground this month after all. Crew-9, SpaceX‘s ninth operational flight to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, had been targeted to lift off on Aug. 18. But it has been pushed back to no earlier than Sept. 24, the agency announced today (Aug. 6). “This adjustment allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test currently docked to the orbiting laboratory,” NASA said in an update this afternoon. Crew Flight Test (CFT) is…

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Planets of Milky Way’s most common stars are less habitable than thought, dead NASA telescope reveals

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The most common stars in the Milky Way may be even less friendly to life than previously suspected. New research suggests that red dwarf stars, stellar bodies smaller and less massive than the sun, may blast their planets with intense ultraviolet (UV) light radiation flares that severely reduce their potential habitability. A team of scientists reached this conclusion by analyzing data collected by the now-decommissioned NASA mission Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX). Launched in April 2003, GALEX scanned the universe in UV light, hunting for flares from around 300,000 nearby stars…

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Hurricane Debby makes landfall in Florida as satellites watch from space (video)

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Satellites in space watched Hurricane Debby roar across Florida on Monday, bringing with it potentially record-setting rainfall and dangerous 80 mph (129 km/h) winds. NOAA’s GOES-East satellite recorded real-time views of Debby as it watched the hurricane unleash its force across the southeastern U.S. The footage, gathered from the satellite’s position about 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above Earth’s equator, shows Debby strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, swirling dangerously close to Florida. Debby made landfall at Steinhatchee, Florida around 7 a.m. ET (1100 GMT) on Aug. 5 as…

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