Spacewatch: James Webb telescope to launch in December
The European Space Agency (Esa), Nasa and Arianespace have announced that the James Webb space telescope’s target launch date is 18 December. It will be carried into space from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, atop an Ariane 5 rocket, which has been designated flight VA256. It will be the third Ariane 5 flight this […]
SpaceX Launches Four Civilians to Space with Inspiration4!
Update: SpaceX has posted footage of what its like to see Earth from space when peering through the Resilience‘s cupola! Today, history was made when the first all-civilian spaceflight launched from Launch Complex 39A at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The purpose of this flight was to raise awareness and funds for the […]
A supermassive black hole that can't stop erupting
If there’s one thing you learn when you study astronomy, it’s do NOT screw around with black holes. 100 million light years from Earth lies a galaxy called NGC 5813. It’s part of a small galaxy group, a collection of a few dozen other galaxies. When viewed in visible light NGC 5813 looks like any […]
NASA’s Perseverance rover has been hit by 100 ‘dust devils’ on Mars
By Jonathan O’Callaghan NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA’s latest Mars rover, Perseverance, encountered 100 dust devils in its first 90 days on Mars after landing in February. Small whirlwinds on Mars, known as vortices, aren’t uncommon. They can be tens of metres wide and several kilometres high, with wind speeds upwards of 100 kilometres […]
These are the most peculiar galaxies you can observe
Taking up the challenge My 1981 article featured 12 of my favorite peculiar galaxies. Since then, I’ve observed many other peculiar galaxies with larger optics. Here are 12 of my new favorites: NGC 1228, NGC 1229, NGC 1230, and IC 1892 make up a chain of galaxies in Eridanus. These four are also known by […]
Pallas Makes a Point in Pisces
I captured this image of Pisces’ Circlet asterism along with Pallas (magnitude 8.6) and Neptune (7.8) around 9:45 p.m. September 12, 2021. The two were 6.8° apart at the time and will remain near each other all fall. Details: 35-mm lens, f/2.8, 70-second exposure at ISO 800 with a tracking mount. Bob King I’ve never […]
NASA awards millions to keep lunar lander dreams alive
Months after losing out to SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and two of its partners in a lunar lander project will be getting fresh infusions of financial support from NASA, thanks to a follow-up program aimed at boosting capabilities for putting astronauts on the moon. Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman aren’t the only […]
Exomoons: The Binary Star Factor
Centauri Dreams readers will remember Billy Quarles’ name in connection with a 2019 paper on Alpha Centauri A and B, which examined not just those stars but binary systems in general in terms of obliquity — axial tilt — on potential planets as affected by the gravitational effects of their systems. The news for habitability […]
Want to go to Mars? Better leave when the Sun is active to minimize galactic radiation poisoning
If the idea of sending humans to Mars is a romantic one, the reality of it is a bucket of cold water. Going to Mars is hard. Something like half of all missions have failed for one reason or another, but adding humans into the mix makes things far harder. We inconveniently need air and […]
A New Way to Search for Exomoons
We’d love to find another planet like Earth. Not exactly like Earth; that’s kind of ridiculous and probably a little more science fiction than science. But what if we could find one similar enough to Earth to make us wonder? How could we find it? We progress from one planet-finding mission to the next, compiling […]