Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 743

Astronaut-led video tour reveals details in ‘For All Mankind’ moon base, Robert Z. Pearlman,

A real astronaut leads the tour of a fictional moon base packed with references to real-life space history in a newly-released video by Apple.

Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, who logged more than 90 of his 107 days in space on board the International Space Station, hosts the virtual tour of Jamestown moon base, or rather the set for such, that was featured in the first season of the alternate Apollo history drama “For All Mankind.” Reisman, who also worked for and now serves as a senior advisor to SpaceX, was a technical consultant for the Apple TV+ series, which was created and written by Ronald D. Moore (“Star Trek,” “Battlestar Galactica”).

“Mankind has always been fascinated by the moon and traveling there was one of humanity’s greatest achievements. But what if landing on the moon was just a beginning?” says Reisman as the four-and-a-half-minute video begins. “Welcome to Jamestown, 1974.”

Related: Apple TV+ changes NASA history in ‘For All Mankind’

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Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman leads viewers through a tour of Jamestown, the Apollo-era moon base featured in the first season of the Apple TV+ series “For All Mankind.” (Image credit: Apple TV+)

In reality, NASA’s Apollo 17 mission returned to Earth with the last astronauts to fly to the moon in late December 1972. By early 1974, the space agency also had landed the third and final crew to live aboard the United States’ first space station, the Skylab workshop. Only one Apollo flight remained — the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flown jointly with the Russians in 1975 — before the space shuttle program began in 1981.

In “For All Mankind,” space history diverges from reality at the point when a Soviet cosmonaut (real-life first spacewalker Alexei Leonov) takes humanity’s first steps onto the moon in 1969. Instead of the United States declaring victory, the space race continues, as both the U.S. and Russia pursue bolder missions on the moon.

Enter Jamestown, literally. In the new video, Reisman takes viewers on an in-depth tour of the moon base set, pointing out details that even the most fervent watchers of the series might have missed. (For a limited time, audiences in the U.S. and over 100 countries and regions can watch “For All Mankind” for free on the Apple TV app.)

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The solar-powered Jamestown moon base was designed using Apollo lunar module parts and systems from aboard the (real life) Skylab orbital workshop. (Image credit: Apple TV+)

With the rock group Bachman Turner Overdrive’s 1973-hit “Takin’ Care of Business” playing in the background, Reisman guides viewers through the solar-powered, single-module base as on-screen notations point out the features he is describing.

“Jamestown base is the first permanent outpost established on the moon built for exploration and research. It is designed to house three astronauts for three months at a time,” Reisman says as the off-screen narrator. “It is not exactly a five-star hotel. Space is confined and privacy is almost non-existent, but compared to the LM [lunar module, or the Apollo moon lander], it is actually pretty roomy.”

Inside, Reisman points out the advantages of living in an environment where there is just enough gravity (one-sixth that of Earth) to make a shower a possibility. The shower’s design is reminiscent of the one used aboard the real Skylab, but in microgravity the astronauts had to squirt water from a hose and use washcloths to clean off their bodies.

Other Skylab-inspired systems shown on the Jamestown tour include resistance bands to aid in exercising, Apollo-style switches and status dials to control and monitor the on board equipment and even the color-coded Snoopy decals used in real life to distinguish between different crew members’ personal items.

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The mission patch for the first permanent outpost established on the moon, the Jamestown moon base, as featured in the first season of the Apple TV+ series “For All Mankind.” (Image credit: Apple TV+)

Speaking of the crew, mission patches attached to the moon base’s walls reveal a few more nods to real-life astronauts, including the names “Crippen” and “Engle,” as well as “Cobb,” which in the context of the series was the first American woman on the moon, but in reality was the surname of one of the first 13 women pilots to pass the same medical tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts.

Reisman also highlights the use of Apollo hardware in the design of the base itself.

“Some of this external equipment might look a little familiar,” he says, as a blueprint of the lunar outpost is displayed on the screen. “The fuel tanks, the RCS [reaction control system] thrusters and four descent engines were all repurposed from the LM (shown here as spelled “LEM,” or Lunar Excursion Module, the original acronym for the real-life Apollo LM).

There is even a cameo by a real-life Apollo veteran. At one point, as Reisman is describing the communications systems with Earth, a TV screen shows archival footage of Instrumentation and Communications Officer, or INCO, Ed Fendell, whose job in Mission Control included controlling the TV cameras positioned on the moon during the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions.

The attention to detail makes the Jamestown moon base seem realistic, but of course, it is just a Hollywood set, made for the filming of “For All Mankind.” Reisman, though, ends the video with a nod to NASA’s and others’ ambitions to return astronauts to the moon, this time sustainably and for extended stays.

“Jamestown shows what a moon base could have looked like in the Apollo era. It is realistic as possible, given the technology of the time,” says Reisman. “Now, we’ve come a long way since the Apollo era — I mean, think about what a moon base could be with the technology of today. Maybe the idea of living on the moon is actually closer than we think.”

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @ collectSPACE . Copyright 2020 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

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Dead Cassini spacecraft could solve mystery of Saturn’s hot atmosphere, Elizabeth Howell,

A spacecraft that died in 2017 is still providing insights about Saturn, the planet it studied up close for 13 years.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft helped scientists to discover why Saturn’s upper atmosphere is so hot, which puzzled planetary scientists for decades since the planet is too far from the sun to receive our star’s heat. But, using old data from Cassini, scientists are closer to solving this mystery.

This new work, which was conducted by NASA and the European Space Agency and led by Zarah Brown, a graduate student at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, suggests that it’s auroras that are heating up Saturn’s atmosphere. These auroras are triggered by the constant stream of charged particles from the solar wind, which interacts with charged particles that flow from Saturn’s moons and creates electric currents.

Related: Amazing Saturn Photos from NASA’s Cassini Orbiter

This insight not only helps scientists understand what is going on at Saturn, but perhaps also at gas giant planets in general. Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus all have strangely hot upper atmospheres as well. There are also numerous exoplanet gas giants far outside of our solar system that may exhibit similar behavior.

“The results are vital to our general understanding of planetary upper atmospheres, and are an important part of Cassini’s legacy,” study co-author Tommi Koskinen, a member of Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph instrument team, said in a statement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Researchers previously used Cassini data to build a map of the temperature and density of Saturn’s upper atmosphere, which was not well known before the spacecraft arrived at the planet in 2004. In this study, this map helped scientists to study how electric currents from Saturn’s auroras heats the planet’s upper atmosphere, generating the solar wind. The solar wind, in turn, distributes energy from the poles (where the auroras are located) towards the equator. That energy then heats the equator to twice the temperatures than could be generated from the sun’s heat.

It’s common for archival data from spacecraft like Cassini to continue providing new insights long after the craft are no longer operational. This particular dataset came from Cassini’s final few months at Saturn when it did 22 very close orbits of the gas giant before deliberately hurling itself into the planet on Sept. 15, 2017 (to prevent possible Earthly contamination of Saturn’s icy moons, which could host microbial life.)

For six weeks, Cassini examined bright stars in the constellations Orion and Canis Major, watching as the stars rose and set behind Saturn. By observing the shifting starlight, scientists were able to learn more about the density of Saturn’s atmosphere. Since density decreases with altitude, the rate of decrease is dependent on temperature, allowing scientists to estimate temperatures in Saturn’s upper atmosphere.

Cassini’s observations showed the temperatures peaking around the auroras, in turn providing evidence that it is electric currents are what Saturn’s upper atmosphere so hot. Wind speeds on Saturn were also determined using density and temperature measurements.

A paper based on the research was published Monday (April 6) in Nature Astronomy.

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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Turbulent skies of nearby ‘failed star’ marked by thick cloud bands, Mike Wall,

Bold banding may be a common feature of brown dwarf skies.

Scientists have spotted evidence of Jupiter-like stripes in the thick atmosphere of a nearby brown dwarf, a new study reports — and this evidence was gathered in a novel way.

Brown dwarfs are bigger than planets but not big enough to host fusion reactions in their interiors. For this reason, these curious objects are also known as “failed stars.”

Related: Wind speed of a brown dwarf measured for 1st time

NASA’s recently retired Spitzer Space Telescope previously detected banding patterns on multiple brown dwarfs, by tracking in detail how the objects’ brightness varied over time. But in this new study, scientists inferred banding via polarimetry, the measurement of polarized light.

Polarized light oscillates in the same direction rather than in multiple, random avenues the way “normal” light does. Polarimetric instruments take advantage of this alignment, much as polarized sunglasses do to reduce the glare of light from Earth’s star.

The study team used a polarimetric instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile to study the brown dwarf Luhman 16A, which is about 30 times heftier than Jupiter. The failed star is part of a brown-dwarf binary; it and its similar-sized partner, Luhman 16B, are the nearest such pair to Earth, a mere 6 light-years away.

The VLT instrument, known as NaCo, detected an excess of polarization in the brown dwarf’s light. That’s a strong indication of atmospheric banding, researchers said. After all, the light was unpolarized when it was first emitted deep within Luhman 16A, becoming polarized by scattering off haze particles high in the brown dwarf’s skies. In a uniform, unbanded atmosphere, this polarization would average out into an unpolarized glow, Caltech representatives explained in a video about the new results.

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Illustration comparing the masses of planets, brown dwarfs and stars. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC))

The scientists further interpreted the VLT observations using sophisticated computer models of Luhman 16A’s thick atmosphere. The combined work suggests that the brown dwarf is striped, perhaps with two major, broad bands, researchers said.

“Polarimetry is the only technique that is currently able to detect bands that don’t fluctuate in brightness over time,” study lead author Maxwell Millar-Blanchaer, a postdoctoral astronomy researcher at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, said in a statement. “This was key to finding the bands of clouds on Luhman 16A, on which the bands do not appear to be varying.”

The team’s models also show that Luhman 16A probably has patches of very turbulent weather, as Jupiter and other gas-giant planets do.

“We think these storms can rain things like silicates or ammonia,” study co-author Julien Girard, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in the same statement. “It’s pretty awful weather, actually.”

The new study marks the first time polarimetry has been used to understand clouds on an object beyond the solar system, team members said. Similar techniques can be used to study other brown dwarfs, and next-generation telescopes in space and on the ground could bring exoplanets into play as well. Polarimetry can help characterize planetary surfaces, potentially allowing scientists to spot liquid water on some alien worlds, study team members said.

“Polarimetry is receiving renewed attention in astronomy,” co-author Dimitri Mawet, an astronomy professor at Caltech and a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech manages for NASA, said in the same statement.

“Polarimetry is a very difficult art, but new techniques and data analysis methods make it more precise and sensitive than ever before, enabling groundbreaking studies on everything from distant supermassive black holes, newborn and dying stars, brown dwarfs and exoplanets, all the way down to objects in our own solar system,” Mawet said.

The new study has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

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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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!

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

The post Pictures from space! Our image of the day, Space.com Staff, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.

On This Day in Space! May 7, 1992: Space shuttle Endeavour launches on maiden voyage, Hanneke Weitering,

On May 7, 1992, the space shuttle Endeavour launched on its first flight. Endeavour was the fifth and last space shuttle that was ever built, and STS-49 was the first of 25 missions to fly on it.

The purpose of this mission was to retrieve a satellite called Intelsat 603, which had failed to reach the right orbit after problems with its launch two years earlier. Three of the six astronauts had to go on a spacewalk together to fetch the satellite, and this was the first time that a trio of astronauts did a spacewalk together.

The crew first tried to do the job with just two astronauts going out two days in a row, but the third time was a charm with an extra pair of hands. The three spacewalkers attached a new motor that would enable Intelsat 603 to leave low Earth orbit and head to its intended geosynchronous orbit.

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 .

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Giant, scorching-hot alien planet has yellow skies, Mike Wall,

We can now add atmospheric craziness to WASP-79b’s already substantial exotic appeal.

The gas-giant exoplanet, which lies about 780 light-years from Earth, circles extremely close to its bright host star, completing one orbit every 3.7 Earth days. That proximity makes WASP-79b scorching hot, with an average temperature around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius), NASA officials said.

All that heat puffs up WASP-79b substantially, making it one of the largest alien worlds ever observed. Although WASP-79b is just 85% as massive as Jupiter, it’s 1.7 times wider than our solar system’s biggest planet.

Related: The strangest alien planets (gallery)

Then there’s the alien world’s air, which researchers have now probed in considerable detail. Iron rain likely falls through WASP-79b’s skies, which probably sport a very alien yellowish hue, a recent study reports. (Yellow on the dayside, that is; like other “hot Jupiters,” WASP-79b is likely tidally locked to its host star, always showing it the same face.)

The scientists behind the new research studied WASP-79b’s atmosphere using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Magellan Consortium’s Magellan II Telescope in Chile. These observations showed no signs of “Rayleigh scattering,” a phenomenon in which small, high-altitude dust particles cause wavelengths of starlight to disperse differentially.

Rayleigh scattering explains why Earth’s sky is blue: This color of light has a very short wavelength and therefore bounces around a lot more than other colors do. It’s unclear why this phenomenon may not be occurring on WASP-79b, study team members said.

“This is a strong indication of an unknown atmospheric process that we’re just not accounting for in our physical models. I’ve shown the WASP-79b spectrum to a number of colleagues, and their consensus is ‘that’s weird,'” lead author Kristin Showalter Sotzen, a graduate student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, said in a statement.

“Because this is the first time we’ve seen this, we’re really not sure what the cause is,” Sotzen said. “We need to keep an eye out for other planets like this because it could be indicative of unknown atmospheric processes that we don’t currently understand. Because we only have one planet as an example, we don’t know if it’s an atmospheric phenomenon linked to the evolution of the planet.”

The iron rain feature, while also exotic, is perhaps not quite so rare. For example, the hot Jupiter WASP-76b seems to sport this type of alien precipitation as well. (“WASP,” by the way, stands for “Wide Angle Search for Planets,” the international consortium that discovered these and a number of other alien worlds.)

We could learn quite a bit more about WASP-79b in the not-too-distant future. Hubble also spotted signs of water vapor in the planet’s atmosphere, a discovery that put WASP-79b on the early target list for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, agency officials said.

The $9.8 billion James Webb is scheduled to launch next year on a mission to peer at the universe’s earliest stars and galaxies, study nearby exoplanets for possible signs of life (though we certainly wouldn’t expect that in WASP-79b’s skies), and much more.

The WASP-79b study was published in January in The Astronomical Journal.

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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Russia wants to land 3 next-generation Luna spacecraft on the moon by 2025, Meghan Bartels,

Russia hasn’t been to the moon since 1976, but the country hopes to soon pick up where it left off.

The nation has a suite of three moon missions planned for the first half of this decade, and Vladimir Kolmykov, head of the Lavochkin Scientific and Production Association, the segment of Russian space agency Roscosmos that oversees interplanetary robots, recently spoke about the program’s current state. The missions will pick up where the Soviet space program left off in the 1970s, with the new spacecraft dubbed Luna-25, Luna-26 and Luna-27, all of which represent partnerships with the European Space Agency (ESA).

“The Luna-25 spacecraft is currently in the assembly and first trial stages,” Kolmykov told President Vladimir Putin, according to an English transcription of the call posted by the Kremlin on April 10. “Yes, there are some cooperation problems but we are working on them. I hope that the 2021 goal of launching Luna-25 will be achieved.”

Related: NASA lunar orbiter spots old Soviet moon landers

According to a conversion with Kolmykov posted to the Roscosmos website on April 14, the Luna-25 spacecraft should be completed next March and the space agency is currently targeting a launch date of Oct. 1, 2021. (ESA is contributing a video camera and ground-station support for the mission, he noted.)

Later this decade, Luna-26 will map the moon’s surface and Luna-27 will study the lunar regolith, the rock and dust that cover the moon’s surface, after landing with a European piloting system. “Overall we are fairly confident that the objectives involving Luna-26 and Luna-27 will be met in 2024 and 2025, respectively,” Kolmykov told Putin during the meeting last month.

More missions are under consideration as well. Luna-28 could carry a small rover and send moon rocks back to Earth; Luna-29 could carry a larger rover along the lines of the Soviet Lunokhod vehicles.

The moon is a popular destination these days. The U.S., which originally raced to the moon with the Soviet Union in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, is aiming to return robots to the lunar surface starting in 2021 as part of its Artemis program to land astronauts at the south pole in 2024. China’s Chang’e-4 lander has spent more than a year studying the far side of the moon with a companion rover, and the nation has a suite of additional missions in the works, with Chang’e-5 scheduled to launch later this year.

Of course, not every moon mission succeeds. Last year, two landers — the Beresheet mission from Israel and the landed portion of India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission — crashed into the lunar surface.

Kolmykov is confident the new Russian missions won’t meet the same fate, he said in the Roscosmos interview. The touchdown process for the Luna landers is modeled on the previous Soviet spacecraft and Roscosmos is not currently exchanging knowledge with Israel or India, he said.

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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THE GLOBAL DIGITAL LANDSCAPE PAVES A NEW REALITY – FACT OR FICTION?

[image error]21530625 – the image of alien planet



A New Workplace

The changes brought by COVID 19 are indeed immediate and begin to shape new ways of doing things in our world. Soon, most of us will no longer commute to work.

Indeed, we will have adapted to live in a more seclusive environment. Our homes, a place to get away from work, will have become our workplace. Already, over 75 million gig workers, freelance out of their homes. Soon, we will see companies increase remote positions, and most business activities will take place over computers. Video conferencing will address not only professional issues but also provide social encounters and entertainment. It is a fact that we all must face.

For those of us who still have a daily commute, well in the not too far away future, and certainly by 2098 if not sooner, experts predict that we will either take new sky roads, with flying taxis, “quapods” and buses. High-speed trains will see other considerable improvements as they will bring people from one country to another. Envision aquatic superhighways, taking individuals from the Uk to the mainland in Europe? This high-speed tubes will transport us in less than one hour from one side to the other. Our skies will no longer be empty as they will fill with vehicles of all sorts, like in the NEWDAWN Saga and ROAMERS, the first book of the series. How cool will that be?

And there is more…

Awesome Domestic Bots

As if this is not enough, imagine that none of us will ever clean our own home again. Indeed, great home bots will become our helpers, finding intricate ways to multi-tasks. They will clean our houses, do the laundry, run errands, pick-up dry cleaning, order food from our favorite stores and restaurants, or simply prepare our meals. Our domestic bots will even become a confidant of sort for some. Indeed, this is what happens to Tesh and Cian, the bots designated to her quarters, after she lost her parents. He became an integral part of her life within the confines of her home. She even refused to give it up and demanded that it received many updates because she became so attached to this very special bot.

Surreal Space Vacations

Our vacation time will no longer take place on some of the famous beaches we know well. By then, climate change will have wiped out a lof to them as our oceans will keep rising, but in the newest experience imaginable, taking a shuttle to nearby space hotels. The ultimate super cool experience of the next century will see us take a load off, as we gravitate through space in a luxurious setting among the stars. It is very much what happens in the NEWDAWN Saga.  

A New Frontier In Aerial Extreme Sports

Even our sports will take a different shape. We have seen the rise of activities involving speed, height, and a high level of physical exertion in the last several years. New highly specialized gear will bring these to the next level. Indeed, it is not too far fetched to anticipate that competitions will take place in the air fifty feet above the ground or more, with hoverboards and jet packs, or even NetJet Boots, a permanent feature used by the Perfect Humans in NEWDAWN.

These are just a taste of what is to come… The next half-century promises some groundbreaking developments and grand things for our society. Indeed, by 2098, life around the world will be very different.

The post THE GLOBAL DIGITAL LANDSCAPE PAVES A NEW REALITY – FACT OR FICTION? appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.

Space calendar 2020: Rocket launches, sky events, missions & more!, Hanneke Weitering,

LAST UPDATED May 6: These dates are subject to change, and will be updated throughout the year as firmer dates arise. Please DO NOT schedule travel based on a date you see here. Launch dates collected from NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, Spaceflight Now and others.

Watch NASA webcasts and other live launch coverage on our “Watch Live” page, and see our night sky webcasts here. Find out what’s up in the night sky this month with our visible planets guide and skywatching forecast.

Wondering what happened today in space history? Check out our “On This Day in Space” video show here!

May

May 7: The full moon of May, also known as the Flower Moon, occurs at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT). It will be the fourth and final “supermoon” of the year. Slooh will hold a live webcast for the “Full Flower Supermoon” beginning at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT).

May 11: Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus NG-13 cargo resupply spacecraft will depart the International Space Station and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. It will be released at 12:10 p.m. EDT (1610 GMT), and NASA TV will provide live coverage beginning at 11:45 a.m. EDT (1545 GMT). Watch it live.

May 12: See the moon, Jupiter and Saturn huddled together in the predawn sky. The waning, gibbous moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 5:41 a.m. EDT (0941 GMT), followed by a conjunction with Saturn at 2:11 p.m. EDT (1811 GMT).

May 14: The last-quarter moon will make a close approach to the Red Planet. It will be in conjunction with Mars at 10:02 p.m. EDT (0202 GMT on May 15). Look for the pair above the southeastern horizon before sunrise.

May 16: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the AFSPC-7 mission for the U.S. Space Force. The mission’s primary payload is the X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, will fly on the program’s sixth mission (OTV-6). It will lift off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

May 17: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is expected to launch the seventh batch of approximately 60 satellites for the company’s Starlink broadband network in a mission designated Starlink 7. It will lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, at 4 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT). Watch it live.

May 18: Jupiter and Saturn will make a close approach in the early morning sky. The pair will be in conjunction at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT).

May 20: A Japanese H-2B rocket will launch the HTV-9 cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. It will lift off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT, or 2:30 a.m. local time). Watch it live.

May 22: New moon

May 23: The one-day-old moon will make a close approach to Venus in the evening sky. It will be in conjunction with Venus at 10:40 p.m. EDT (0240 GMT on May 24). Look for them above the southwestern horizon just after sunset.

May 25: Japan’s HTV-9 cargo resupply spacecraft will arrive at the International Space Station at at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1215 GMT). NASA TV will provide live coverage of the rendezvous and capture beginning at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT). Watch it live.

May 27: Crew Dragon Demo-2. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to take its first crewed test flight to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on board. It will lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, at 4:32 p.m. EDT (2032 GMT). Watch it live.

May 28: NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station in their SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft at approximately 11:29 a.m. EDT (1529 GMT). Watch it live.

May 31-June 4: 236th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

Also scheduled to launch in May (from Spaceflight Now ):

Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket will make its first orbital test flight. It will drop from a modified Boeing 747 aircraft carrier above the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California.
Rocket Lab will launch an Electron rocket on a rideshare mission carrying three payloads for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Also on board will be the ANDESITE CubeSat for Boston University and NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative, which will study Earth’s magnetosphere and space weather, and the M2 Pathfinder satellite, a technology demonstration mission that is a collaboration between the Australian government and the University of New South Wales Canberra Space. The mission, nicknamed “Don’t Stop Me Now,” will lift off from the company’s New Zealand launch facility on the Mahia Peninsula.
A Russian Proton rocket will launch the Express 80 and Express 103 communications satellites for the Russian Satellite Communication Company. It will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
A Chinese Kuaizhou 1A rocket will launch Xingyun 2-01 and Xingyun 2-02, the first two satellites for China’s planned Xingyun Internet of Things communications and data relay constellation. It will lift off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China’s Gobi Desert.
A Chinese Long March 3B rocket will launch a satellite for the country’s Beidou navigation network toward geostationary orbit. It will lift off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the country’s Sichuan Province.

June

June 5: A penumbral lunar eclipse will be visible from Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa. The moon will begin passing through Earth’s shadow at 1:45 p.m. EST (1745 GMT), and the eclipse will last for 3 hours and 18 minutes.

June 5: The full moon of June, known as the Strawberry Moon, occurs at 3:12 p.m. EDT (1912 GMT).

June 8: The waning, gibbous moon will form a small triangle with Jupiter and Saturn in the morning sky. It will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 1:21 p.m. EDT (1721 GMT), followed closely by a conjunction with Saturn about 9 hours later at 10:12 p.m. EDT (0212 GMT on June 9).

June 12: Just a day before reaching last quarter phase, the moon will make a close approach to Mars in the predawn sky. The pair will be in conjunction at 7:55 p.m. EDT (2355 GMT), but they will be below the horizon for skywatchers in the U.S. at that time. You can find them above the southeastern horizon for a few hours before sunrise.

June 19: The one-day-old moon will make a close approach to Venus in the evening sky. It will be in conjunction with Venus at 4:53 EDT (0853 GMT). Look for them above the eastern horizon just before sunrise.

June 20: Happy Solstice! Today marks the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

June 21: An annular solar eclipse will be visible from parts of Africa and Asia.

June 30: Asteroid Day

June 30: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the U.S. Air Force’s third third-generation navigation satellite, designated GPS 3 SV03, for the Global Positioning System. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Also scheduled to launch in June (from Spaceflight Now ):

An Arianespace Vega rocket will launch on the Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) proof-of-concept mission carrying 42 microsatellites, nanosatellites and cubesats. The rideshare mission will lift off from the Guiana Space Center near Kourou, French Guiana.
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket will launch a classified spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The mission, titled NROL-44, will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

July

July 4: Happy Aphelion Day! Earth is farthest from the sun today.

July 4-5: A penumbral lunar eclipse will be visible from the Americas and parts of Africa and Antarctica. The moon will begin passing through Earth’s shadow on July 4 at 11:07 p.m. EST (0307 GMT on July 5), and the eclipse will last for 2 hours and 45 minutes.

July 5: The full moon of July, known as the Beaver Moon, occurs at 12:44 a.m EDT (0444 GMT). That same day, the moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 5:38 p.m. EDT (2138 GMT). The moon will also be in conjunction with Saturn on July 6 at 4:38 a.m. EDT (0838 GMT). The trio will form a small triangle in the night sky before fading into the dawn.

July 8: The “morning star” Venus is at its greatest brightness for the year, shining at magnitude -4.5 in the morning sky.

July 11: The waning, gibbous moon will make a close approach to the Red Planet in the early morning sky. It will be in conjunction with Mars at 3:38 p.m. EDT (1938 GMT).

July 14: The United Arab Emirates plans to launch its first Mars orbiter, the Hope Mars Mission. It will launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on a Japanese H-2A rocket.

July 14: Jupiter reaches opposition, which means the planet will appear at its biggest and brightest. This happens about once a year, when Jupiter’s position is almost directly opposite the sun in the sky. Around the same time, Jupiter will also make its closest approach to Earth.

July 17: NASA’s Mars 2020 rover launches to the Red Planet! It will lift off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Watch it live.

July 17: The waning crescent moon will be in conjunction with Venus, the “morning star,” at 3:27 a.m. EDT (0727 GMT). Look for the pair above the eastern horizon before dawn.

July 20: New moon

July 20: Saturn reaches opposition, which means the planet will appear at its biggest and brightest. This happens about once a year, when Saturn’s position is almost directly opposite the sun in the sky. Around the same time, Saturn will also make its closest approach to Earth.

July 23: A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch the 76th Progress cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. It will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Watch it live.

Also scheduled to launch in July (from Spaceflight Now ):

China plans to launch an orbiter and a small rover to Mars. The mission, called , will lift off on a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan, China.

August

Aug. 1: The nearly-full moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 7:32 p.m. EDT (2332 GMT). The following morning (Aug. 2), it will be in conjunction with Saturn at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT). Look for the trio in the evening sky.

Aug. 3: The full moon of August, known as the “Sturgeon Moon,” occurs at 11:59 a.m. EDT (1559 GMT).

Aug. 9: The waning, gibbous moon will make a close approach to the Red Planet in the early morning sky. It will be in conjunction with Mars at 4 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT).

Aug. 11-12: The Perseid meteor shower peaks.

Aug. 15: The waning crescent moon will be in conjunction with Venus, the “morning star,” at 9:01 a.m. EDT (1301 GMT). Look for the pair above the eastern horizon before dawn.

Aug. 18: Black Moon: The third new moon in a season with four new moons is known as a “black moon.” (A black moon can also be the second new moon in a single calendar month.)

Aug. 28/29: The waxing, gibbous moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 9:35 p.m. EDT (0235 GMT on Aug. 29). The following day, it will be in conjunction with Saturn at 12:32 p.m. EDT (1632 GMT). Look for the trio in the evening sky.

Aug. 31: Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus NG-14 cargo spacecraft will launch to the International Space Station on an Antares rocket. It will lift off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Also scheduled to launch in August (from Spaceflight Now ):

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the U.S. Air Force’s fourth third-generation navigation satellite, designated GPS 3 SV04, for the Global Positioning System. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

September

Sept. 1: Asteroid 2011 ES4 will make a close flyby of Earth, passing by at a safe distance of 0.0005 AU, or 46,000 miles (75,000 kilometers).

Sept. 2: The full moon of September, known as the “Harvest Moon,” occurs at 1:22 a.m. EDT (0522 GMT).

Sept. 6: The waning, gibbous moon will make a close approach to the Red Planet in the early morning sky. It will be in conjunction with Mars at 12:46 a.m. EDT (0446 GMT).

Sept. 11: Neptune is at opposition. If you have the right equipment and a sky dark enough to see it, now is the best time all year to look!

Sept. 14: The waning crescent moon will be in conjunction with Venus, the “morning star,” at 12:44 a.m. EDT (0444 GMT). Look for the pair above the eastern horizon before dawn.

Sept. 17: New moon

Sept. 22: Happy Equinox! At 9:15 a.m. EDT (1315 GMT), autumn arrives in the Northern Hemisphere while the Southern Hemisphere will have its first day of spring.

Sept. 25: The waxing, gibbous moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 2:48 a.m. EDT (0648 GMT). The following day, it will be in conjunction with Saturn at 4:38 p.m. EDT (2038 GMT). Look for the trio in the evening sky.

Also scheduled to launch in September (from Spaceflight Now ):

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch a classified spacecraft payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The mission, NROL-101, will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

October

Oct. 1: The full moon of October, known as the “Hunter’s Moon,” occurs at 5:05 p.m. EDT (2105 GMT).

Oct. 2: The waning, gibbous moon will make a close approach to the Red Planet in the early morning sky. It will be in conjunction with Mars at 11:25 a.m. EDT (0325 GMT).

Oct. 4-10: World Space Week

Oct. 7-8: The Draconid meteor shower peaks.

Oct. 13: Mars is at opposition, which means it’s bigger and brighter than any other time of year. Look for the glowing Red Planet above the eastern horizon after sunset.

Oct. 14: A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch the crewed Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft to the International Space Station with members of the Expedition 65 crew: Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin, Ivan Vagner and Nikolay Chub. It will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Watch it live.

Oct. 16: New moon

Oct. 21-22: The Orionid meteor shower peaks.

Oct. 22: Just a day before reaching first quarter phase, the moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 1:12 p.m. EDT (1712 GMT). That same day, it will be in conjunction with Saturn at 11:42 p.m. EDT (0324 GMT on Oct. 23). Look for the trio in the evening sky.

Oct. 29: The waxing, gibbous moon will be in conjunction with Mars at 12:16 p.m. EDT (0325 GMT). Look for the pair above the eastern horizon after sunset.

Oct. 30: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a Dragon cargo resupply mission (CRS-21) to the International Space Station. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Watch it live.

Oct. 31: Uranus is at opposition. This is the best time of year to view the planet, as it is at its biggest and brightest. If the sky is dark enough, you may be able to spot it with your bare eyes.

Oct. 31: This month has two full moons, which means we’ll have a “Blue Moon” on Halloween. The moon reaches full phase at 10:49 a.m. EDT (1449 GMT).

November

Nov. 11-12: The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks.

Nov. 12: The waning crescent moon will be in conjunction with Venus, the “morning star,” at 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT). Look for the pair above the eastern horizon before dawn.

Nov. 15: New moon

Nov. 16-17: The Leonid meteor shower peaks.

Nov. 19: The waxing crescent moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 3:57 a.m. EST (0857 GMT). Shortly afterward, it will be in conjunction with Saturn at 9:51 a.m. EST (1451 GMT). Look for the trio in the evening sky.

Nov. 25: The waxing, gibbous moon will be in conjunction with Mars at 2:46 p.m. EST (1946 GMT). Look for the pair above the eastern horizon after sunset.

Nov. 30: A penumbral lunar eclipse will be visible from the Americas, Australia and Asia. The moon will begin passing through Earth’s shadow at 2:32 a.m. EST (0732 GMT), and the eclipse will last for 4 hours and 20 minutes.

Nov. 30: The full moon of November, known as the “Beaver Moon,” occurs at 4:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT).

Also scheduled to launch in November (from Spaceflight Now ):

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Sentinel 6A satellite (also known as Jason-CS A), a joint mission between the European Space Agency, NASA, NOAA, CNES and Eumetsat to continue recording sea level data that was previously collected by the Jason series of satellites. It will lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

December

Dec. 13-14: The Geminid meteor shower peaks.

Dec. 14: The only total solar eclipse of 2020 will cross through the southern tip of South America. The moon’s shadow will take a similar path to the one it did for the “Great South American Eclipse” of July 2, 2019.

Dec. 16/17: The waxing crescent moon will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 11:30 p.m. EST (0430 GMT on Dec. 17). A few hours later on Dec. 17, it will be in conjunction with Saturn at 12:20 a.m. EST (0520 GMT). Look for the trio near the southwestern horizon just after sunset. .

Dec. 21: The solstice arrives at 4:47 a.m. EST (0947 GMT), marking the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

Dec. 21: Jupiter and Saturn will make a close approach in the evening sky. The pair will be in conjunction at 8:24 a.m. EST (1324 GMT).

Dec. 21-22: The Ursid meteor shower peaks.

Dec. 23: The waxing, gibbous moon will be in conjunction with Mars at 1:31 p.m. EST (1831 GMT). Look for the pair above the eastern horizon after sunset.

Dec. 29: The full moon of December, also known as the Cold Moon, occurs at 10:28 p.m. EST (0328 GMT).

Also scheduled to launch in December (from Spaceflight Now ):

A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch the 77th Progress cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. It will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

More coming in 2020…

China will launch the Chang’e 5 mission to return samples from the moon. It will be the first lunar sample return mission attempted since 1976.
A Chinese Long March 5B rocket will launch on a test flight with an unpiloted prototype for China’s new human-rated crew capsule, which is designed for future human missions to the moon. This will be the first flight of a Long March 5B rocket. It will lift off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan, China.
India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk. 2 (GSLV Mk.2) will launch the county’s first GEO Imaging Satellite, or GISAT 1. It is scheduled to lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India. The launch was postponed from March 6 due to technical problems with the rocket.
India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) will launch on its first orbital test flight from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India.
India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) will launch on its first commercial mission with four Earth observation satellites for BlackSky Global. It will lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India.
India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will launch the RISAT 2BR2 radar Earth observation satellite for the Indian Space Research Organization. It will lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India.
Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2 : A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on its second uncrewed mission to the International Space Station, following a partial failure in December. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
A Rocket Lab Electron rocket will launch on its first mission from a new launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. It will launch an experimental mission for the U.S. Air Force’s Space Test Program called Monolith, which carries a space weather instrument.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the SAOCOM 1B Earth observation satellite for Argentina. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch the AFSPC-44 mission for the U.S. Air Force. The mission will lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and is expected to deploy two undisclosed payloads into geosynchronous orbit.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Anasis 2, or KMilSatCom 1, communications satellite for the South Korean military, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Turksat 5A communications satellite for the Turkish satellite operator Turksat. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket will launch the ELaNa-20 rideshare mission with 14 cubesats. A Boeing 747 named “Cosmic Girl” will air-launch the rocket over the Pacific Ocean after taking off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
A Russian Angara-A5 rocket will launch on its second orbital test flight from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia.
A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch approximately 36 satellites into orbit for the OneWeb constellation of communications satellites. The mission, titled OneWeb 4, will launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia.
An Arianespace Soyuz rocket will launch the Falcon Eye 2 Earth-imaging satellite for the United Arab Emirates. It will lift off from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana.
An Arianespace Vega rocket will launch the SEOSat-Ingenio Earth observation satellite and the Taranis scientific research satellite from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.
An Arianespace Vega C rocket will launch on its inaugural flight, carrying the Italian space agency’s LARES 2 satellite into orbit. It will lift off from the Guiana Space Center near Kourou, French Guiana.
An Arianespace Soyuz rocket will launch the second Composante Spatiale Optique (CSO-2) military reconnaissance satellite for the French space agency CNES and DGA, the French defense procurement agency. It will lift off from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the AFSPC-8 mission for the Space Force’s Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP). It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket will launch a classified spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The mission, titled NROL-82, will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
A U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman Minotaur 1 rocket will launch a classified spy satellite cargo for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The mission, NROL-111, will lift off from Wallops Island, Virginia.
The U.S. Air Force will use a Minotaur 4 rocket to launch a classified spy satellite cargo for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Dubbed NROL-129, the mission will lift off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Please send any corrections, updates or suggested calendar additions to hweitering@space.com. Follow Space.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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NASA space lasers track Earth’s disappearing ice sheets and sea-level rise, Chelsea Gohd,

Using NASA space lasers, scientists have tracked how ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic have changed over the last 16 years, showing the drastic effects of climate change.

The research relied on observations from NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which launched in 2003, and its successor ICESat-2, which launched in 2018 as one of the most advanced Earth-observing laser instruments. Using that data, scientists have shown that, while ice has increased a tiny amount in East Antarctica, West Antarctica has lost an enormous amount of ice.

This study revealed that Greenland’s ice sheet lost an average of 200 gigatons of ice per year while Antarctica’s lost an average of 118 gigatons of ice per year. For reference, one gigaton of ice can fill 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to a NASA statement. The combined ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica has lifted sea levels by 0.55 inches (14 millimeters) between 2003 and 2019.

Related: The effects of global warming

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Using space-based technology, researchers have found a significant loss of ice in Antartica and Greenland’s ice sheets. (Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

“If you watch a glacier or ice sheet for a month, or a year, you’re not going to learn much about what the climate is doing to it,” Ben Smith, a glaciologist at the University of Washington and lead author of this new paper, said in the same statement. “We now have a 16-year span between ICESat and ICESat-2 and can be much more confident that the changes we’re seeing in the ice have to do with the long-term changes in the climate.”

To come to this conclusion, the researchers overlaid measurements gathered by ICESat between 2003 and 2009 with more recent ones that ICESat-2 took in 2019. They used data from tens of millions of different points where the two datasets met and, by comparing the two sets, they were able to see how much the elevation had changed.

The scientists in this study also developed a new model to calculate density across ice sheets, which allowed them to calculate total ice-sheet mass and therefore total mass loss.

ICESat-2, like its predecessor, is a laser altimeter. It sends 10,000 pulses of light per second down to Earth. These beams bounce right back to the satellite. The satellite is so precise that it can show how Earth’s surface changes down to an inch.

This work shows exactly how climate change is affecting these ice sheets, which in turn affects sea levels. Although snowfall in certain parts of Antarctica has increased, causing the ice sheet to thicken, this gain is far outweighed by the extreme loss in ice caused by a warming ocean, according to the statement.

“The new analysis reveals the ice sheets’ response to changes in climate with unprecedented detail, revealing clues as to why and how the ice sheets are reacting the way they are,” Alex Gardner, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and co-author on the paper, said in the statement.

These findings were published April 30 to the journal Science.

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