Interview with OCEANOS Instructor María Fernanda Barbarena-Arias

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4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) María Fernanda Barbarena-Arias (left), an associate professor of biology and instructor for the OCEANOS internship, stands on the sand of Playa Melones, Culebra Island, during the field work section of the internship. NASA ARC/Milan Loiacono What is your name and your role with OCEANOS? My name is María Fernanda Barbarena-Arias. I am an associate professor of biology at the American University of Puerto Rico, Metropolitan Campus. I am also a co-PI in the OCEANOS project, and an instructor and…

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Interview with OCEANOS Instructor Samuel Suleiman

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3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Samuel Suleiman, an instructor for the OCEANOS internship, teaches students about sargassum and shore ecology on Culebra Island, Puerto Rico, during the fieldwork section of the project. Suleiman is also the Executive Director of Sociedad Ambiente Marino: a Puerto Rican NGO that works in conservation and coral reef restoration. NASA ARC/Milan Loiacono What is your name and your role with OCEANOS? My name is Samuel Suleiman and I am the Executive Director of Sociedad Ambiente Marino: an NGO in…

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Interview with OCEANOS Instructor Roy Armstrong

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4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Roy Armstrong, an instructor for the OCEANOS internship and marine sciences professor, pilots a small boat around the cays off the coast of La Parguera, Puerto Rico. NASA ARC/Milan Loiacono What is your name and your role with OCEANOS? My name is Ray Armstrong and I am a professor in the Department of Marine Sciences of the University of Puerto Rico. I came to be involved in OCEANOS because my ex-student and good friend Juan Torres-Perez, who works at…

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SpaceX launching 24 Starlink satellites from Florida on Monday

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SpaceX plans to launch 24 more of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida’s Space Coast on Monday (Nov. 11). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Monday during a four-hour window that opens at 4:02 p.m. EST (2102 GMT). The launch had originally been planned for Sunday evening, but was delayed due to “unfavorable recovery weather conditions,” according to SpaceX. SpaceX will webcast the launch live via X, beginning about five minutes before liftoff. If all goes to…

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NASA’s Roman space telescope gets ready to stare at distant suns to find alien planets

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In a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, scientists have successfully integrated a crucial component onto the Roman Space Telescope. This device, known as the Roman Coronagraph Instrument, is designed to block starlight, enabling scientists to detect the faint light from planets beyond our solar system. This achievement marks a significant milestone for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a next-generation space observatory that will launch around May 2027. With a field of view at least 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope,…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 136 —SpaceX Ascendant

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SpaceX Ascendant – Can Anyone Compete? – YouTube Watch On On Episode 136 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik talk with journalist and author Eric Berger about the rise of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s future in US politics and the market. At this point, can anyone compete with SpaceX? Love him or hate him, Elon Musk and his cadre of very talented employees and partners have built the most remarkable launch service in history, increasing the US launch rate from a handful to over 100 per…

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Where do fast radio bursts come from? Astronomers tie mysterious eruptions to massive galaxies

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Every day, invisible to the human eye, thousands of enigmatic flashes of cosmic energy known as fast radio bursts (FRBs) erupt across the sky, releasing as much energy in milliseconds as the sun does in a day. Thanks to their fleeting nature, scientists have often had to rely on luck just to observe FRBs, let alone pinpoint where they come from or what causes them to behave the way they do. Now, astronomers led by Kritti Sharma at the California Institute of Technology posit that such energy-packed light flashes tend…

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Australian company Gilmour Space gets country’s 1st orbital launch license

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Australia is poised to be the next country to take the giant leap into orbit. Aussie-based company Gilmour Space received the country’s first orbital launch license this week, as it prepares for the first test flight of its Eris rocket. A specific launch date is expected within the next few weeks, according to a Gilmour Space press release, with a liftoff from the company’s Bowen Orbital Spaceport, in northern Queensland. Gilmour Space opened its doors in 2015, and has since grown to more than 200 employees. Located on Queensland’s Gold…

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Sols 4357–4358: Turning West

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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 4 min read Sols 4357–4358: Turning West NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity…

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4 years after the giant Arecibo Observatory collapsed, we finally know what happened

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What does the discovery of a binary pulsar in 1974, the discovery of the first exoplanets, and the most powerful message humans have ever sent out into space all have in common? They all happened at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. With a spherical reflector dish that was 305 meters (roughly 1000 feet) in diameter, Arecibo held the title of world’s largest radio telescope for over half a century — from its construction in 1963 until 2016. To the dismay of astronomers around the world, in 2020, Arecibo’s reflector…

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