Pass the cranberry sauce! A distant star-forming nebula looks like a turkey fleeing a cosmic Christmas dinner in a new telescope image. The festive photo, taken by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, features the star-hatching clouds of gas and dust that comprise the nebula IC 2944, located around 6,500 light-years from Earth. IC 2944 has a distinctly fowl-like appearance, so astronomers have nicknamed it the “Running Chicken Nebula.” In the stunning new 1.5-billion-pixel VLT image, the wispy gas and dust tendrils of the nebula…
Read MoreAdam Sandler ventures deep into the cosmos in new teaser for ‘Spaceman’ (video)
Adam Sandler is a wildly versatile performer whose catalog of Hollywood projects has spanned everything from goofy sports comedies like “Happy Gilmore” and “The Waterboy,” to more dramatic fare like “Punch-Drunk Love” and “Uncut Gems.” His ongoing associations with Netflix have produced the recent animated family film, “Leo,” and the coming-of-age comedy “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” which he stars in with his daughters. Now Sandler is venturing into uncharted outer space in Netflix’s upcoming sci-fi film, “Spaceman,” where he plays a wayward astronaut whose marriage…
Read MoreNASA Astronauts Test SpaceX Elevator Concept for Artemis Lunar Lander
SpaceX NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug “Wheels” Wheelock participated in a recent test of a sub-scale mockup elevator for SpaceX’s Starship human landing system that will be used for NASA’s Artemis III and IV missions to the Moon. The Starship human landing system will carry two astronauts from the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit to the surface, serve as a habitat for crew members’ approximately one week stay on the Moon, and transfer them from the surface back to Orion. The elevator will transport equipment and crew between Starship’s…
Read MoreArtemis II Crew Visits White House
NASA / Bill Ingalls Artemis II crew members (from left) CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman pose for a group photograph after their meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Dec. 14, 2023. The crew will travel aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft on a 10-day mission around the Moon, testing spacecraft systems for the first time with astronauts for long-term exploration and scientific discovery. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Read MoreKennedy Space Center Looks Ahead to a Busy Year in 2024
The mobile launcher, carried by the crawler-transporter 2, rolls out from its park site location to Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in August 2023 for testing ahead of the agency’s Artemis II mission. NASA/Ben Smegelsky Another jam-packed year is in store for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the momentum of a busy 2023 is carried forward into the new year. On the horizon are missions to the Moon, more crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station, and several upgrade projects across…
Read MoreVirgin Galactic to launch 6th commercial spaceflight on Jan. 26
Virgin Galactic’s sixth commercial spaceflight will lift off next month, if all goes according to plan. The mission, known as Galactic-06, is targeted for Jan. 26, Virgin Galactic announced in a statement issued on Tuesday (Dec. 19). The flight will include four private astronauts — one from Texas, one from California, one from Austria and one jointly from Ukraine and California, according to the statement. Names of the participants were not released. Virgin Galactic, which is part of billionaire Richard Branson‘s Virgin Group of companies, takes tourists and private astronauts…
Read MoreSpaceX fires up giant Starship rocket ahead of 3rd test flight (video)
SpaceX’s latest Starship vehicle has begun flexing its considerable muscle. SpaceX conducted a “static fire” test today (Dec. 20) with the Starship upper-stage prototype known as Ship 28, briefly igniting the vehicle’s Raptor engines while it remained anchored to the pad at the company’s Starbase site in South Texas. Ship 28 is being prepped to conduct Starship’s third test flight, which SpaceX aims to launch in the coming weeks. And that timeline apparently remains in target, for today’s trial went well. “Flight 3 Starship completed a full-duration static fire with…
Read MoreNASA Leadership Participates in Vice President-Chaired National Space Council Meeting
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, second from left, speaks during the third meeting of the National Space Council alongside Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Steve Welby, left, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget Nani Coloretti, center, Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk, second from right, and Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves, right, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington. Chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris, the council’s role is to advise the President regarding national space…
Read MoreThe Marshall Star for December 20, 2023
32 Min Read The Marshall Star for December 20, 2023 Crew-6 Connects with Marshall Team Members During Visit By Celine Smith One week after the 25th anniversary of the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 visited the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center to share their experience during Expedition 69. The event was held Dec. 14 in Building 4316. Expedition 69 began March 2 with Crew-6 flying on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. While aboard the space station, the crew studied the behavior of flames in microgravity,…
Read MoreFinding life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus might be easier than we thought
New research suggests there are locations on the surface of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, where spacecraft could land to scoop up pristine traces of the key ingredients for life. It’s believed that these biosignatures come from subsurface oceans within the world’s icy shell. Enceladus has long been known to harbor organic molecules — compounds comprised of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen — in its subsurface oceans. Before it plunged to the surface of Saturn in 2017, the Cassini spacecraft flew through plumes of material erupting through fissures in the surface of Enceladus,…
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