Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 742
May 22, 2020
NASA is having a virtual ‘Launch America’ social for historic SpaceX flight. (Yes, you’re invited), Elizabeth Howell,
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NASA astronauts Bob Behnken (left) and Doug Hurley give a thumbs up after arriving at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center ahead of SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission, on May 20, 2020. (Image credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA)NASA is ready to virtually host thousands of excited people for America’s first launch of astronauts from United States soil to orbit since 2011.
The agency will host a “Launch America” social event in the coming days to give members of the public a behind-the-scenes look at the SpaceX Crew Dragon launch of Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, which is scheduled for launch Wednesday (May 27) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Novel coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions mean crowds will not be permitted nearby the site — but you can still get a fun experience online, NASA says.
Related: SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 test flight with astronauts in photos
To get started, make sure you subscribe to NASA’s social media channels. Coverage will be on NASA TV, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. Use the hashtag #LaunchAmerica on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook to join in the conversation, which may allow you to be featured on these channels, as NASA explains here.
A number of activities will be happening exclusively on Facebook during the days before the launch, including a virtual tour of NASA facilities, a virtual look at the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and the chance to chat with NASA representatives. More information on events and timing are available at the special NASA website, Be Our Guest, and the NASA TV schedule is posted here.
“Through NASA’s virtual launch experience, we make it possible for more people than ever to watch the beginning of this new era in human spaceflight,” Bettina Inclan, NASA’s associate administrator for communications, said in a statement. “We’re already seeing people participate online with the #LaunchAmerica hashtag, and helping build the excitement for this historic moment.”
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NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley speak to members of the media after arriving at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on May 20, 2020. (Image credit: NASA)NASA’s first crewed launch social (then called a “tweetup”) took place in 2009 in association with space shuttle launch STS-129, attracting dozens of participants to the media site of the Kennedy Space Center. (STS-129 was the fifth tweetup overall, but the first alongside a human spaceflight.) In the decade since, the agency has regularly hosted many social events at several of its centers to highlight NASA science missions and other activities.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
The post NASA is having a virtual ‘Launch America’ social for historic SpaceX flight. (Yes, you’re invited), Elizabeth Howell, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
It’s official: SpaceX is ‘go’ to launch NASA astronauts on Crew Dragon spaceship, Mike Wall,
SpaceX is ready to make space history with its first astronaut launch for NASA next week.
No showstoppers were found during a crucial flight readiness review (FRR) for SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission, keeping the company’s first-ever crewed flight on track for a May 27 liftoff, NASA officials announced today (May 22).
“The Flight Readiness Review has concluded, and NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission is cleared to proceed toward liftoff on the first crewed flight of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program,” NASA officials wrote in an update today.
Related: SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 mission explained in 13 steps
Demo-2 will send NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
The mission will be the first orbital human spaceflight to depart from American soil since NASA retired its space shuttle fleet in July 2011. Ever since then, the space agency has relied completely on Russian Soyuz rockets and spacecraft to get its astronauts to and from the orbiting lab.
NASA is counting on SpaceX and Boeing to end that dependence. In 2014, the agency awarded SpaceX $2.6 billion to finish development of the Crew Dragon-Falcon 9 system and fly six operational crewed missions to the ISS. Boeing got a similar, $4.2 billion deal at the same time, which the aerospace company will fulfill using a capsule called CST-100 Starliner.
Demo-2 is the last big hurdle SpaceX needs to clear before it can start flying those contracted missions. Crew Dragon visited the ISS on an uncrewed flight in March 2019 called Demo-1, and Demo-2 will fully validate the capsule for operational flight, if all goes according to plan.
But Demo-2 must clear some hurdles of its own before lifting off. And one of the big ones, the FRR, is now in the books.
The FRR began yesterday (May 21) at KSC and stretched into this afternoon. During the meeting, NASA, ISS and SpaceX managers discussed in detail “the readiness of the Crew Dragon and systems for the Demo-2 mission; the readiness of the International Space Station Program and its international partners to support the flight; and the certification of flight readiness,” NASA officials wrote in an update yesterday.
And everything went very well, NASA officials said.
“It was an excellent review,” NASA associate administrator Steve Jurczyk said during a teleconference with reporters today. “There are no significant open issues, I am happy to report.”
But there are still some boxes to tick before Demo-2 can get off the ground. For example, this afternoon, SpaceX will conduct a “static fire” of the Falcon 9 that will launch the mission, testing out its first-stage engines while the rocket remains tethered to the ground. And tomorrow (May 23), the teams will hold a “dry dress” exercise, during which Behnken and Hurley will suit up and the teams will run through many of the procedures that will occur on launch day.
Data from these two tests, as well as other information, will then be analyzed in detail on Monday (May 25) during a final launch readiness review.
“We’re going to stay vigilant over the next few days,” Kathy Lueders, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, said during today’s telecon. “We’re going to take it one step at a time, and we’re going to still fly when we’re ready.”
This story was updated at 4:15 p.m. EDT on May 22 with information from the post-FRR teleconference.
Mike Wall is the author of “ Out There ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate ), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook .
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May 18, 2020
Comet SWAN: A brilliant ‘icy wanderer’ in photos, Space.com Staff,
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Gerald Rhemann)Meet Comet SWAN
Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN was discovered in early April 2020, when amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo spotted it in images captured by NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory on March 25. It has since brightened just enough for skywatchers to spot it with the naked eye under dark, clear skies, though it is easier to see through binoculars or telescopes.
The comet is expected to reach perihelion on May 27, when it will swing around the sun and begin its journey back to the outskirts of the solar system. See photos of the bright, new comet in this Space.com gallery. In the image above, Comet SWAN shows off its long ion tail during its closest approach to Earth on May 12.
Related: Newfound Comet SWAN could soon fizzle out of view
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(Image credit: ESA/NASA/SOHO)SOHO’s view of Comet SWAN
This animated all-sky map shows the view that NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) had of comet C/2020 F8 SWAN from March 25, 2020 to early May. These views were captured using SOHO’s Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) camera, after which the newfound comet was named. Comet SWAN appears to leave the left side of the image in mid-April and reappears on the right side around May 3.
SOHO’s SWAN instrument can detect hydrogen in space, and because Comet SWAN is releasing huge amounts of water (about 1.3 metric tons, or 1.5 imperial tons per second), this outflow made the comet visible to SOHO’s instruments, NASA officials said in a statement.
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Michael Mattiazzo)May 7
Amateur astronomer and Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN discoverer Michael Mattiazzo of Castlemaine, Australia, captured this image of the new comet on May 7, 2020.
Comet SWAN initially caught Mattiazzo’s attention because it apparently was undergoing a sudden outburst of hydrogen gas — something that SOHO’s SWAN instrument is particularly well adapted to picking up.
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Gerald Rhemann)May 5
Astrophotographer Gerald Rhemann captured this image of comet C/2020 F8 SWAN on May 5, 2020, using an ASA 12-inch F3.6 Astrograph with a FLI Microline KAF-16200 camera.
The “dirty snowball” features a fuzzy, bright-green coma with a long and distinct ion tail. The ion tail consists of gas that is escaping the comet and being ionized by ultraviolet light from the sun. The gas is pushed outward by the solar wind.
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Michael Mattiazzo)May 4
Michael Mattiazzo, the amateur astronomer who discovered Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN, captured this image of the comet on May 4, 2020.
The comet was 135 million miles (217 million kilometers) from the sun when Mattiazzo first saw it, but it will ultimately come to within 40.2 million miles (64.6 million km) of our star when it arrives at its perihelion, its closest point to the sun, on May 27.
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(Image credit: Bradley Michelbach/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0)May 4
Bradley Michelbach captured this view of Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN on May 4, 2020, using a William Optics RedCat 51 APO f/4.9 refracting telescope, a Star Adventurer tracking mount and a Canon EOS 700D camera.
“Played video games until 3 a.m. waiting for this space iceberg to rise over the hill,” Michelbach wrote in an image description. Camera set up earlier, now dripping from dew, I’m reminded by what this target is largely made up of … ice!
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Gerald Rhemann)May 4
Astrophotographer Gerald Rhemann captured this image of comet C/2020 F8 SWAN on May 4, 2020.
Rhemann used an ASA 12-inch F3.6 astrograph with a FLI Microline KAF-16200 camera to capture the comet from Farm Tivoli in Namibia, at approximately 3:30 a.m. local time.
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(Image credit: Christian Gloor/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)May 1
Photographer Christian Gloor captured this 5-minute exposure of Comet SWAN on May 1, 2020, using a Celestron 5SE telescope on an AVX mount with a ZWO ASI295MC Pro astrophotography camera.
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Gerald Rhemann)May 1
Gerald Rhemann captured this image of comet C/2020 F8 SWAN from Farm Tivoli in Namibia on May 1, 2020, at 3:10 a.m. local time. Rhemann used an ASA 12-inch F3.6 astrograph with a FLI Microline KAF-16200 camera to capture the comet.
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Gerald Rhemann)April 26
Another view of comet C/2020 F8 SWAN, captured by Gerald Rhemann on April 26, 2020. At the time, the comet was shining at magnitude +7.2, which is too faint to be seen with the naked eye but visible with binoculars or telescopes.
Less than a week later, the comet’s brightness had surged more than six-fold, reaching magnitude +5.2. By that time, the comet was faintly visible in a dark sky with the unaided eye. But ever since then, the comet’s brightening has stalled and even has appeared to dim a little.
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(Image credit: COBS Comet Observation Database/CC BY-NA-SA 4.0)Comet SWAN’s light curve
A light curve of Comet SWAN from the Comet Observation Database (COBS) clearly illustrates the rapid rise in the comet’s brightness in early May, followed by a slight downturn.
Related: Newfound Comet SWAN could soon fizzle out of view
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(Image credit: SkySafari)Where to see comet SWAN
From now through early June, Comet SWAN will track north and east from the constellation Triangulum, into Perseus and will enter Auriga on June 1. Up until May 24, your best chance of catching a view of the comet will be in the morning sky. Start looking about 60 to 70 minutes before sunrise; the comet should appear roughly 10 degrees above the northeast horizon.
This animation shows the position of Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN in the morning sky from May 15 to May 24, looking northeast about one hour before sunrise.
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(Image credit: SkySafari)Where to see comet SWAN
After May 25, best chances of seeing the comet will transition to the evening sky. About 60 to 70 minutes after sunset, the comet will be positioned about 10 degrees above the north-northwest horizon, with any semblance of a tail pointing upward and to the left.
This animation shows the position of Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN in the evening sky from May 25 to May 31, looking northwest about one hour after sunset.
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(Image credit: NASA JPL)Comet SWAN orbit diagram
This 3D orbit animation shows the path that Comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN) will take around the sun between April 2020 and March 2021. Comet SWAN is expected to reach perihelion, its closest point to the sun, around May 27, 2020 — two weeks after its closest approach to Earth on May 12. The comet’s steep orbit is inclined 111 degrees relative to the ecliptic plane.
Editor’s note: If you have an amazing photo of Comet SWAN that you’d like to share for a possible story or image gallery, you can send images and comments to spacephotos@space.com.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
The post Comet SWAN: A brilliant ‘icy wanderer’ in photos, Space.com Staff, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
See Jupiter and Saturn snuggle up in the predawn sky this week, Elizabeth Howell,
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This sky map shows Jupiter and Saturn on the morning of their close approach on May 18, 2020, as seen from New York City at 2:30 a.m. local time. (Image credit: SkySafari)The two giant planets of the solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, will snuggle up in the predawn sky this week, offering spectacular views for night owls and early risers.
The pair had a close encounter early Monday (May 18), when they were separated by about 4.7 degrees (for reference, your clenched fist held at arm’s length is about 10 degrees wide). But the cosmic duo will continue to stick together for the rest of the month, and you can catch them together in the hours between midnight and sunrise.
To see the sky show, all you need are your eyes, a small bit of outdoor space and a clear view of the southeast horizon, which makes the activity achievable even if you are stuck in your house or apartment due to quarantine restrictions.
Related: The brightest planets in May’s night sky: How to see them
Jupiter will appear in the constellation Sagittarius, the archer, shining at magnitude -2.5. (Magnitude is a scale of stellar brightness, with smaller numbers indicating brighter objects and negative numbers denoting the brightest objects.) Second only to the moon, Jupiter will be the brightest object in the predawn sky. The only planet brighter than Jupiter is Venus, which rises about an hour after sunrise and dominates the evening sky, shining at magnitude -4.2.
Meanwhile, Saturn will be just to the left of Jupiter, shining at magnitude 0.3 in the constellation Capricornus, the sea goat. The planets will be too widely spaced to fit in a telescope, but you can see them comfortably with the naked eye, or a set of binoculars.
The planetary pair made their closest approach on Monday (May 18) at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT), just a few minutes after the two planets rose above the southeast horizon. Both planets will continue to rise shortly after midnight all week long, but if you’re watching that early, it may be hard to see them in the murk close to the horizon.
Luckily, the show continues well into the night, and as the planets rise higher in the sky they will provide a spectacular view until the growing light of dawn washes them out. To get the best view, give your eyes about 20 minutes to adjust to the darkness, and try as best as you can to get away from artificial light. (If you want to use a star chart, we recommend using a red filter on your phone, or on your flashlight.)
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This sky map shows Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and the moon as seen from New York City on May 19, 2020, at 4 a.m. local time. (Image credit: SkySafari)While the planets are reasonably close in the sky, the encounter doesn’t qualify as a conjunction. To be in conjunction, two celestial objects making a close approach must also share the same celestial longitude. That said, both Saturn and Jupiter came into conjunction with Earth’s moon last week.
It’s common for planets and the moon to come close to each other in the night sky, because all of them travel on the same apparent path in space, called the ecliptic. The ecliptic represents the plane of the solar system, or the region in space where the planets and Earth’s moon orbit on a (virtual) flat disc.
Editor’s note: If you have an amazing night sky photo you’d like to share for a possible story or image gallery, you can send images and comments to spacephotos@space.com.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
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‘Kerbal Space Program’ teams up with European Space Agency for ‘Shared Horizons’ expansion, Tariq Malik,
The European Space Agency is joining the “Kerbal Space Program.”
Space gamers and die-hard “Kerbal Space Program” fans will soon be able to recreate some of the biggest missions from the European Space Agency (ESA) in the free update “Shared Horizons” from developers Private Division and Squad.
The update, which launches July 1, requires the base game and will add ESA’s workhorse Ariane 5 rocket, BepiColombo mission to Mercury and Rosetta comet mission to the roster of missions Kerbal players can try in the popular space simulator game. There’ll also be an ESA spacesuit for the game’s intrepid Kerbals to wear, new rocket components and science experiments to pursue.
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“Here at the European Space Agency, many of our engineers and scientists are very familiar with KSP,” ESA Director of Science Gunther Hasinger said in a statement. “Both Rosetta and BepiColombo are highly complex missions that have specific challenges; however, each prove to be very rewarding for ESA and the global scientific community. Because of this, I am very happy that these ground-breaking science missions can be experienced on Kerbin as well as on Earth.”
Kerbin is the Earth analogue that Kerbals launch into space from in “Kerbal Space Program.” The game’s Mercury equivalent is Moho, while the moon is simply Mun.
“We are excited to partner with the ESA to bring their actual missions and spacecraft to Kerbal Space Program for the first time,” Private Division executive producer Michael Cook said in the statement. “It is an honor to work hand-in-hand with such a world-class space organization, and we cannot wait for fans to experience these monumental missions with the Shared Horizons update.”
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ESA’s Ariane 5 rocket and other gear will be included in Kerbal Space Program: Shared Horizons. (Image credit: Private Divisioni)ESA’s Rosetta comet mission launched in 2004 and visited Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta dropped the lander Philae on the comet and spent nearly two years studying the icy wanderer before intentionally crashing into the surface.
The BepiColombo mission, meanwhile, is a partnership between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to explore Mercury with a pair of spacecraft: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. That mission launched in 2018 and will arrive in orbit at Mercury in 2025. BepiColombo’s mission is tricky because it includes nine planetary flybys: one of Earth (which occurred April 10), two of Venus and six of Mercury itself.
“Shared Horizons” isn’t the first time that “Kerbal Space Program” has incorporated real-life space exploration into its gameplay. The game’s “Making History” expansion in 2018 allowed players to recreate iconic missions from space history, while its “Breaking Ground” expansion added planetary rovers and other surface exploration features to the mix.
“Kerbal Space Program has already been an inspiration for an entire generation of future engineers and scientists, so introducing this level of realism will really take it to the next level,” ESA Director of Space Transportation Daniel Neuenschwander, said in a statement. “I really look forward to seeing the innovative ways in which players will approach designing their new space transportation services.”
Last week, Private Division and NASA challenged “Kerbal Space Program” players to recreate SpaceX’s upcoming Demo-2 Crew Dragon launch and submit entries on social media using the hashtag #LaunchAmerica. Demo-2 is SpaceX’s first astronaut launch on a Crew Dragon and will mark the first U.S. crewed orbital spaceflight from American soil since NASA’s space shuttles were retired in 2011.
Private Division is currently developing a sequel to the physics-based space simulator. That game, “Kerbal Space Program 2,” will include wild technologies for interplanetary travel and is expected to launch in 2021.
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik . Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook and Instagram .
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
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SpaceX postpones Starlink satellite fleet launch due to Tropical Storm Arthur, Chelsea Gohd,
SpaceX has delayed the launch of its next batch of Starlink internet satellites due to weather fallout from Tropical Storm Arthur.
The Starlink flight, which will loft 60 new satellites for SpaceX’s growing megaconstellation from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, will now lift off after the company’s planned Demo-2 mission on May 27.
“Standing down from the Starlink mission, due to tropical storm Arthur, until after launch of Crew Demo-2,” SpaceX wrote on Twitter today.
Video: Satellites see Tropical Storm Arthur from space
SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission is the company’s first crewed flight test of its Dragon capsule for NASA. The mission will launch two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station from Pad 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
SpaceX originally planned to launch the upcoming Starlink mission on Sunday (May 17), but was forced to postpone the flight to Monday after another mission, the U.S. Space Force’s launch of an X-37B space plane, was also delayed by weather over the weekend.
SpaceX later announced that bad weather conditions from Arthur would push the launch back another to Tuesday, May 19. However, with surface winds expected to reach at least 39 mph (63 km/h), according to the National Hurricane Center, the launch has been pushed once again until sometime after May 27.
The company received criticism after the first Starlink launches because astronomers and other scientists cited that the brightness of the satellites, which launch in batches of 60, was interfering with observations.
SpaceX experimented with painting the satellites with a dark coating but, with this launch, intended to test a new approach, a “sunshade,” known as VisorSat, is a set of darkened shades that could deploy to block the sun. By eliminating the sun’s bright reflection, the satellites would, in theory, be much less bright and much less visible in the night sky.
In April, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that the company’s next launch, would test their new “sunshades,” known as the VisorSat, but they did not specify when that launch would be or if it would carry multiple VisorSats, according to SpaceNews. This upcoming launch will mark SpaceX’s eighth Starlink mission. Musk has said that all Starlink satellites would be equipped with sunshades by the ninth Starlink launch.
Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
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Satellites see Tropical Storm Arthur, the Atlantic’s 1st named storm of 2020, from space, Meghan Bartels,
Satellites have spotted the first named storm of the 2020 Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, Tropical Storm Arthur, swirling off the coast of North Carolina.
Stunning views of the storm released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) yesterday and today (May 17 and 18) show Arthur churning in the Atlantic Ocean as it made its way north off the U.S. East Coast. The tropical storm is being carefully watched by the administration’s GOES-16 satellite, also known as GOES-East, the current weather sentinel for the Eastern half of the U.S. in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite series.
The storm has already affected some space missions. SpaceX has postponed the planned launch of 60 new Starlink internet satellites originally scheduled to fly this week to due the storm’s effects on Florida’s Space Coast. The mission will now launch sometime after SpaceX’s next mission, a crewed test flight of its new Crew Dragon capsule NASA scheduled for May 27.
Related: The most powerful storms of the solar system in photos
The Atlantic hurricane season does not formally begin until June 1, which is still two weeks away, according to NOAA. The season continues through Nov. 30. In a traditional year, the Atlantic Ocean would see about a dozen named storms during that period; last year saw 18.
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Satellite imagery of Tropical Storm Arthur, as seen on May 17, 2020. (Image credit: CIRA/NOAA)According to forecasts from NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, Tropical Storm Arthur is bringing heavy rain and gusts to North Carolina today, then is predicted to turn gradually eastward by tomorrow. Also tomorrow, the storm will likely lose the sustained wind speeds, currently no higher than 45 mph (72 km/h), that classify it as a tropical storm, the forecast added.
The Pacific Ocean saw its first typhoon last week (the same type of system as a hurricane, just in the Pacific). Now a tropical cyclone, Vongfong made landfall in the Philippines on May 14 before beginning to weaken.
That storm has been monitored by a satellite called Suomi NPP, which is a partnership between NASA and NOAA.
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
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May 8, 2020
Pictures from space! Our image of the day, Space.com Staff,
Space can be a wondrous place, and we’ve got the pictures to prove it! Take a look at our favorite pictures from space here, and if you’re wondering what happened today in space history don’t miss our On This Day in Space video show here!
Hubble eyes a two-armed galaxy
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(Image credit: ESA/NASA.Hubble/A. Riess et al.)Friday, May 8, 2020: This new image from the Hubble Space Telescope features the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3583. Located some 98 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, NGC 3583 is about three-quarters the size of our Milky Way galaxy. But while the Milky Way has four distinct spiral arms that wrap around its galactic core, NGC 3583 has two long arms that twist out into the universe. Astronomers have observed two supernova explosions in this galaxy, one in 1975 and then again in 2015. — Hanneke Weitering
Full Flower Supermoon
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(Image credit: Kevin M. Gill/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)Thursday, May 7, 2020: The nearly-full moon of May, known as the Flower Moon, gleams against the twilight sky in this photo taken by Kevin M. Gill of Los Angeles, California, on Wednesday night. The moon reached full phase this morning at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT). According to NASA, this was the fourth and final “supermoon” of 2020, although some astronomers disagree about whether it qualified as a “supermoon.” — Hanneke Weitering
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(Image credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/Davide De Martin)Wednesday, May 6, 2020: Lurking stealthily in the center of this wide-field image of the Telescopium constellation is the closest black hole to Earth, a record-breaking discovery that astronomers announced today. The newfound black hole is located about 1,000 light-years from Earth in what astronomers originally believed to be a binary, or double-star system. But thorough observations of the star system, called HR 6819, revealed an invisible third object influencing the stars’ orbits. Although the black hole itself is invisible, the stars in the HR 6819 system are bright enough to see without a telescope in a dark, clear sky from the Southern Hemisphere. This image of HR 6819 was captured as part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. — Hanneke Weitering
An astronaut’s view of the Big Apple
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(Image credit: NASA)Tuesday, May 5, 2020: This photo of Earth from space, captured by an astronaut at the International Space Station, features the Greater New York City area, including parts of Westchester, Long Island and New Jersey. An Expedition 63 crewmember captured this view of the Big Apple from approximately 257 miles (413 kilometers) overhead on April 28. — Hanneke Weitering
Mexico seen from space
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(Image credit: NASA)Monday, May 4, 2020: An astronaut on board the International Space Station captured almost all of Mexico in a single shot while photographing planet Earth from inside the station’s Cupola observatory. Framing the shot is the center window of the Cupola, and the golden solar array of a Cygnus cargo spacecraft is visible below. You can find an annotated version of this image from NASA here. — Hanneke Weitering
“Stretched” spiral galaxy bursts with baby stars
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(Image credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble/L. Ho)Friday, May 1, 2020: A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope features the sparkling spiral galaxy NGC 4100, which is teeming with baby stars. The galaxy’s spiral arms are speckled with pockets of bright blue starlight radiating from hot newborn stars. NGC 4100 is located about 67 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, and it belongs to a group of galaxies called the Ursa Major Cluster. It’s about three-quarters the size of the Milky Way, which is also a spiral galaxy, and it “looks almost stretched across the sky” in this new view, Hubble scientists said in a statement. The space telescope captured this image using its Advanced Camera for Surveys, and it was released today (May 1). — Hanneke Weitering
“Spiders” spotted on Mars
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(Image credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona)Thursday, April 30, 2020: Strange, spider-like features creep on the surface of Mars in this image taken by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. These spidery landforms are what scientists call “araneiform” terrain, which literally translates to “spider-like.” The features arise because the Red Planet’s climate is so cold that during the Martian winter, carbon dioxide freezes from the atmosphere and accumulates as ice on the surface. When that ice begins to thaw in the spring, that carbon dioxide sublimates back into the atmosphere, or turns from a solid to a gas, leaving behind deep troughs in the terrain as gas is trapped below the surface. — Hanneke Weitering
Dwarf galaxy “steals the show” in Hubble image
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(Image credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble/T. Armandroff)Wednesday, April 29, 2020: In a deep-space image featuring countless distant galaxies of all shapes and sizes, a tiny dwarf galaxy takes center stage. The small elliptical galaxy in the foreground of this new Hubble Space Telescope image is known as PGC 29388. It contains between 100 million to a few billion stars, which pales in comparison to our Milky Way galaxy, which has 250 to 400 billion stars. “As beautiful as the surrounding space may be, the sparkling galaxy in the foreground of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope undeniably steals the show,” Hubble scientists said in a statement. The image was released on April 20, a few days before the telescope celebrated its 30th anniversary. — Hanneke Weitering
Milky Way sparkles over La Silla
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(Image credit: Petr Horalek/ESO)Tuesday, April 28, 2020: The arc of the Milky Way galaxy shimmers over the La Silla Observatory in Chile in this gorgeous night-sky view by European Southern Observatory (ESO) photo ambassador Petr Horalek. In the center of the image is the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, and to its left is the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler telescope. Visible beneath the righthand limb of the Milky Way’s starry arc are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. Saturn is visible under the left side of the arc, with Jupiter glowing brightly just above it and slightly to the left. You can see more in a 360-degree panoramic version of this image here. — Hanneke Weitering
Venus meets the crescent moon
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(Image credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project)Monday, April 27, 2020: The bright “evening star” Venus shines near the crescent moon in this photo captured by astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Rome. Venus and the moon made a close approach in the evening sky yesterday (April 26), and the planet will reach its greatest brightness of the year tomorrow (April 28). — Hanneke Weitering
Hubble captures a “cosmic reef”
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(Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI)Friday, April 24, 2020: Happy birthday, Hubble! To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA released this new image of a “cosmic undersea world” that is teeming with stars and colorful clouds of interstellar dust and gas. The image features the giant red nebula NGC 2014 and its smaller blue companion NGC 2020, both located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 163,000 light-years from Earth. Hubble scientists have nicknamed the image the “Cosmic Reef,” because the large nebula “resembles part of a coral reef floating in a vast sea of stars,” Hubble officials said in a statement. — Hanneke Weitering
A Lyrid meteor and the Milky Way
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(Image credit: Courtesy of Tina Pappas Lee)Thursday, April 23, 2020: A “shooting star” crosses the Milky Way galaxy in this photo taken during the peak of the annual Lyrid meteor shower. Photographer Tina Pappas Lee captured this view from Fripp Island, South Carolina, on Wednesday (April 22) at approximately 4:45 a.m. local time. Directly below the meteor, two of the brightest planets in the night sky, Jupiter and Saturn, are visible side by side. — Hanneke Weitering
Apollo 16’s “Earthrise”
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(Image credit: NASA)Wednesday, April 22, 2020: Happy Earth Day from space! This stunning view of Earth rising above the lunar horizon was captured by NASA’s Apollo 16 crew shortly before they landed on the moon 48 years ago. The astronauts snapped this picture, which appears to have been inspired by Apollo 13’s famous “Earthrise” photo, on April 20, 1972, the same day the lunar module Orion touched down on the surface with NASA astronauts John Young, Apollo 16 commander, and lunar module pilot Charlie Duke. Command module pilot Ken Mattingly stayed in orbit during their 71-hour stay on on the surface. — Hanneke Weitering
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(Image credit: NASA)Tuesday, April 21, 2020: A chain of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites orbits over Earth’s lime-green auroras in this photo captured by an astronaut at the International Space Station. The tiny satellite trails were captured on Monday (April 13) at 5:25 p.m. EDT (2125 GMT), as the station was passing over the southern Indian Ocean at an altitude of about 231 nautical miles (428 kilometers), NASA said in an image description. The satellites pictured here appear to belong to the fifth batch of approximately 60 satellites that SpaceX has launched for its new Starlink constellation, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who avidly tracks objects in Earth’s orbit. The company plans to launch its seventh batch of satellites on Wednesday (April 22). — Hanneke Weitering
Related:
No, they’re not aliens — SpaceX’s Starlink satellites surprise British skywatchers
Meteor and the Milky Way over La Silla
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(Image credit: M. Zamani/ESO)Monday, April 20, 2020: A “shooting star” streaks through the night sky near the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two of Earth’s galactic neighbors, in this photo from the La Silla Observatory in Chile. In the foreground of the image are two of the three new ExTrA (Exoplanets in Transits and their Atmospheres) telescopes at the observatory. — Hanneke Weitering
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(Image credit: Andrey Shelepin/NASA/GCTC)Friday, April 17, 2020: The Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft carrying three astronauts back from the International Space Station parachutes down to Earth before landing in Kazakhstan. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Drew Morgan and their Russian crewmember Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos safely touched down today at 1:16:43 a.m. EDT (0516 GMT or 11:16 a.m. local Kazakh time), southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan. — Hanneke Weitering
Hubble eyes a multiring galaxy
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(Image credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble/J. Greene)Thursday, April 16, 2020: The Hubble Space Telescope has captured this new view of a peculiar spiral galaxy with rings within its winding galactic arms. Known as NGC 2273, this galaxy is officially designated as a barred spiral, meaning that it has a central bar of stars and pinwheeling arms. But this galaxy also has several ring structures within its spiral arms. NGC 2273 hosts one inner ring along with two outer “pseudorings.” Astronomers believe these rings were created by spiral arms appearing to wind up tightly into a closed loop. — Hanneke Weitering
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(Image credit: NASA)Wednesday, April 15, 2020: Earth’s fluffy clouds and blue horizon provide a gorgeous backdrop for the Soyuz MS-16 crew spacecraft, seen here approaching the International Space Station with three Expedition 63 crewmembers on board. The Soyuz arrived at the orbiting lab on Thursday (April 9) with NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. An astronaut at the International Space Station captured this image from approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean, near the coast of Peru. — Hanneke Weitering
A shimmering dance
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(Image credit: NASA)Tuesday, April 14, 2020: An astronaut on the International Space Station captured this image of the aurora australis over the Indian Ocean on April 8, 2020. At the time, the space station was near the southernmost point in its orbit, and preparing for the arrival of three new crewmembers. — Meghan Bartels
Goodbye, Earth!
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(Image credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)Monday, April 13, 2020: On April 10, the European-Japanese spacecraft BepiColombo conducted a flyby of Earth, which slowed the probe’s speed enough to turn its trajectory toward the inner solar system. The next day, the spacecraft took its final image of Earth, a delicate bright crescent in the vastness of space. — Meghan Bartels
The day before launch
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(Image credit: NASA)Friday, April 10, 2020: Fifty years ago today, NASA astronauts Jack Swigert, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise posed with a model of the spacecraft they would launch on the next day for the mission dubbed Apollo 13. The flight was plagued with challenges even before launch, and the crew would experience a catastrophic explosion in the mission’s service module, but all three returned to Earth safely. — Meghan Bartels
Expedition 63 lifts off
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(Image credit: Andrey Shelepin/NASA/GCTC)Thursday, April 9, 2020: A Russian Soyuz rocket soars toward the International Space Station with three Expedition 63 crewmembers after lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today (April 9) at 4:05 a.m. EDT (0805 GMT or 1:05 p.m. local Kazakh time). The Soyuz MS-16 crew capsule safely arrived at the orbiting laboratory about six hours later, with NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner on board. — Hanneke Weitering
“Pink Moon” seen from space
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(Image credit: NASA)Wednesday, April 8, 2020: The nearly-full Pink Moon rises over a cloud-covered Earth in this photo taken by an astronaut at the International Space Station. This photo was taken on Monday (April 6), one day before the supermoon, or a full moon that coincides with the moon’s perigee, the closest point to Earth in its orbit. Because the full moon of April is traditionally called the Pink Moon, last night’s supermoon has been referred to as the “Super Pink Moon.” — Hanneke Weitering
Juno spots hazy clouds on Jupiter
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(Image credit: Petr Horalek/ESO)Thursday, March 19, 2020: In this stunning night sky photo, the full arc of the Milky Way galaxy glitters over a photographer’s shadow at the construction site for the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), on the Chilean mountain Cerro Armazones. Scheduled to open in 2025, ELT will be “the world’s biggest eye on the sky,” with a 39-meter (128-foot) primary mirror. ELT will scan the skies in optical and near-infrared wavelengths of light to search for worlds beyond our solar system, particularly for potentially Earth-like exoplanets. It will also help astronomers study how planets, stars, galaxies and black holes formed in the early universe. — Hanneke Weitering
A stellar nursery in the Tarantula Nebula
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(Image credit: Jessica Meir/NASA/Twitter)Thursday, March 5, 2020: A new view of New York City captured from the International Space Station show’s the city’s skyline in incredible detail. NASA astronaut Jessica Meir photographed the city from the orbiting laboratory, which circles the Earth at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers). “Clear views of bustling #NYC day and night lately from @Space_Station,” Meir tweeted on Wednesday (March 4). “Central Park looks inviting. Midtown’s skyline reminds me of a metallic pin art impression.” — Hanneke Weitering
A portrait of Saturn’s moon Enceladus
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(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)Wednesday, March 4, 2020: A new global view of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus shows the tiny satellite’s “tiger stripe” fissures and frosty plumes in stunning detail. This artist’s illustration of Enceladus was created from a global map that scientists working on NASA’s Cassini mission stitched together from images that the spacecraft collected during its first 10 years of exploring the Saturn system. — Hanneke Weitering
Merging storms spotted on Jupiter
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(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/Tanya Oleksuik)Tuesday, March 3, 2020: Two white, oval-shaped storms in Jupiter’s atmosphere have been spotted merging into one. NASA’s Juno spacecraft caught these anticyclonic storms in the act using its JunoCam imager on Dec. 26, 2019, as the spacecraft was completing its 24th perijove, or close flyby of the planet. At the time, Juno was passing about 44,900 miles (72,200 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops at a latitude of about 60 degrees south.
NASA has been tracking the larger of the two merging storms for years, and scientists have watched it gobble up several smaller storms in the past, NASA said in a statement. It narrowly avoided a merger with this same storm just a few months before this image was captured, when the two made a close approach as they churned through the planet’s turbulent atmosphere. — Hanneke Weitering
Hubble spots a galactic “traffic jam”
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(Image credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble/P. Erwin et al.)Monday, March 2, 2020: A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope features the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3887, with its long, winding arms and bright galactic core. The German-English astronomer William Herschel discovered this galaxy, which is located 60 million light-years away from Earth, about 234 years ago. At the time, astronomers didn’t understand how such spiral arms could even exist, because they thought a galaxy’s spinning core would eventually wind them up so tightly that the spirals would disappear. It wasn’t until the 1960s that astronomers came up with an explanation.
“Rather than behaving like rigid structures, spiral arms are in fact areas of greater density in a galaxy’s disc, with dynamics similar to those of a traffic jam,” Hubble officials said in a statement. “The density of cars moving through a traffic jam increases at the center of the jam, where they move more slowly. Spiral arms function in a similar way; as gas and dust move through the density waves, they become compressed and linger, before moving out of them again.” — Hanneke Weitering
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China’s new space capsule lands safely to end 1st uncrewed test flight, Meghan Bartels,
China’s next-generation crew capsule successfully returned to Earth today (May 8) after nearly three days in orbit.
The capsule, which has not yet been named, launched on a Long March 5B rocket on May 5 on an uncrewed test flight that represents an important step toward China’s goal of building a space station in orbit.
The capsule landed today at 1:49 p.m. local time in Beijing (1:49 a.m. EDT, 0549 GMT), having spent two days and 19 hours orbiting Earth, according to a statement from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, a state-owned contractor for the space agency.
Related: China’s new space capsule aces maneuvers in test flight
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China’s new crew capsule comes in for landing in this undated photo. The capsule made its first landing from space in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on May 8, 2020. (Image credit: CASC)During its flight, the capsule executed seven trajectory maneuvers, reaching a maximum altitude of about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers). The landing procedure began about two hours before touchdown and tested important components like the heat shield, parachutes and air cushions.
The capsule is designed to hold six or seven astronauts at a time and is meant to facilitate exploration in low Earth orbit and beyond; the capsule could one day carry astronauts to the moon, according to Chinese government news service Xinhua. The capsule and its cylindrical service module together stand about 30 feet (9 meters) tall and nearly 15 feet (4.5 m) wide, according to CGTN.
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An artist’s illustration of China’s next-generation space capsule for astronauts in orbit. (Image credit: China Academy of Space Technology)Image 3 of 4
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China’s next-generation space capsule for astronauts is seen during preparations for its first uncrewed test launch in May 2020. (Image credit: China Academy of Space Technology)Image 4 of 4
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China’s next-generation space capsule for astronauts is seen during preparations for its first uncrewed test launch in May 2020. (Image credit: China Academy of Space Technology)According to comments released before this week’s launch, a successful test flight would open the door to a slate of 11 missions revolving around space station construction. The Long March 5B rocket is an upgraded version of China’s heavy-lift Long March 5 and will be the go-to booster to launch space station modules. During this week’s test flight, the rocket also launched an experimental inflatable prototype for cargo reentry, but that vehicle suffered an “abnormal” return to Earth during its test, Chinese space officials have said.
China has previously launched humans aboard its Shenzhou space capsules, but the new design includes several improvements, according to Xinhua, including a larger contiguous space for living and working and large electronic display screens.
The new capsule, which the government initiated research on in January 2017, is also designed to be reusable.
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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On This Day in Space! May 8, 1962: Centaur rocket explodes during maiden flight, Hanneke Weitering,
On May 8, 1962, NASA’s new Centaur rocket exploded in mid-air during its first test flight. The Centaur was an upper stage specially designed to launch heavier payloads into orbit. For its first launch, it flew on an Atlas rocket booster.
The liftoff from Cape Canaveral went well at first. Then 54 seconds later, the Centaur suddenly exploded. Both the Centaur and the Atlas disintegrated at an altitude of nearly 30,000 feet (9,000 meters).
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NASA’s Centaur rocket explodes during its first test flight on May 8, 1962. (Image credit: NASA)An investigation determined that the insulation panels around the liquid hydrogen fuel tank couldn’t withstand the pressure during the flight, so the tank ruptured. This was the first rocket launch to use liquid hydrogen in its propulsion system.
NASA redesigned the Centaur and launched its first successful test flight the following year. Different versions of the Centaur have since been used to launch missions throughout the solar system.
Catch up on our entire “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist.
Still not enough space? Don’t forget to check out our Space Image of the Day, and on the weekends our Best Space Photos and Top Space News Stories of the week.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience . Follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .
This article was adapted from a previous version published in All About Space Bookazine, a Future Ltd. publication. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .
This article was adapted from a previous version published in All About Space Bookazine, a Future Ltd. publication. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
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