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Latest by G. Torbet

watch spacex fire up starship rocket ahead of next test flight sn15 prototype static

SpaceX scrubs the high altitude test of its SN15 Starship prototype

SpaceX has scrubbed the high altitude test of its Starship prototype, which had been scheduled for Friday. The test will likely be pushed back to next week.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Mars helicopter Ingenuity passes fourth flight and has a new mission

After a small stumble, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity has completed its fourth flight. Now it has a new mission, called its operations demonstration phase.
spacexs historic crew dragon mission in pictures approach

How to watch the SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts return to Earth this weekend

On May 1, a SpaceX Crew Dragon will depart from the International Space Station carrying four astronauts on a journey home to Earth. Here's how to watch.
life on mars - perfecting propulsion feature updated

Perfecting propulsion: How we’ll get humans to Mars

life on mars: perfecting propulsion feature

Perfecting propulsion: How we’ll get humans to Mars

To get the details on what a propulsion for a crewed expedition to Mars might look like, we spoke to an expert in cutting-edge rocket propulsion systems.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter can be seen hovering during its third flight on April 25, 2021, as seen by the left Navigation Camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover.

Ingenuity helicopter aces 3rd test flight over the Martian surface

Mars helicopter Ingenuity has aced its third test flight, traveling a distance of 50 meters at a top speed of 2 meters per second.
This mosaic of Mars is composed of about 100 Viking Orbiter images. The images were acquired in 1980 during mid-northern summer on Mars.

Mars subsurface holds potential for microbial life, study suggests

New research suggests that the area beneath Mars's surface, called the subsurface, might be potentially hospitable for life.
Artist's conception of the violent stellar flare from Proxima Centauri discovered by scientists in 2019 using nine telescopes across the electromagnetic spectrum, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Powerful flares eject from Proxima Centauri with regularity, impacting the star's planets almost daily.

Our nearest neighboring star emits record-breaking stellar flare

Our neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, has emitted a stellar flare is 100 times more powerful than any solar flare from our sun.
A Long March-5 rocket, carrying an orbiter, lander and rover as part of the Tianwen-1 mission to Mars, lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China's Hainan Province on July 23, 2020.

China’s first Mars rover to be named after the fire god Zhurong

NASA's Perseverance rover will soon have a new companion on the red planet, as China is set to send its first Mars rover to the surface as early as next month.
In celebration of the 31st anniversary of the launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers aimed the celebrated observatory at one of the brightest stars seen in our galaxy to capture its beauty. The giant star featured in this latest Hubble Space Telescope anniversary image is waging a tug-of-war between gravity and radiation to avoid self-destruction. The star, called AG Carinae, is surrounded by an expanding shell of gas and dust. The nebula is about five light-years wide, which equals the distance from here to our nearest star, Alpha Centauri.

Hubble celebrates its 31st birthday with image of a stunning but unstable star

Today is the 31st anniversary of the launch of Hubble, and to celebrate researchers have used the telescope to image one of the most famous stars in our galaxy.
An artist's impression of an asteroid approaching Earth

NASA to roleplay what would happen if an asteroid struck Earth

This week, space agencies from around the world will drop everything to figure out an emergency response to our planet being struck by an enormous asteroid.
The four new SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts joined the Expedition 65 crew today bringing the station population to 11.

SpaceX Crew Dragon docks with the ISS to drop off astronauts

The SpaceX Crew Dragon, launched yesterday on its second operational mission to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station, has arrived safely.
In this illustration, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet's surface as NASA's Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away. Ingenuity arrived at Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, attached to the belly of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

Mars helicopter Ingenuity to make its third test flight tomorrow

Having made a successful second test flight, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter isn't slowing down. The team intends to perform a third, more complex flight tomorrow.
The crew for the second long-duration SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2, are pictured during a training session at the SpaceX training facility in Hawthorne, California. From left are, Mission Specialist Thomas Pesquet of the (ESA (European Space Agency); Pilot Megan McArthur of NASA; Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA; and Mission Specialist Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

How to watch SpaceX launch astronauts to the ISS early Friday

NASA and SpaceX will once again be working together to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station. We've got the details on how to watch.
Artist's impression of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, en route to a January 2019 encounter with Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69.

New Horizons is now 50 times as far from the sun as Earth

A NASA probe which was the first spacecraft to explore Pluto is continuing its journey into the solar system, where it is now almost 5 billion miles from home.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocked its rotor blades, allowing them to spin freely, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

First test flight of Mars helicopter Ingenuity set for tomorrow

NASA's tiny helicopter Ingenuity arrived on Mars along with Perseverance, and after a small issue and some tweaks, it's ready for its first test flight.
This artist's concept shows a hypothetical planet covered in water around the binary star system of Kepler-35A and B.

These five binary star systems could potentially host habitable planets

If you've dreamed of living on an alien world with two suns, researchers identified five double star systems which could potentially host habitable worlds.
nasa visualization two black holes blackhole binary mainsequence 1

Trippy NASA video shows two black holes interacting

NASA has created a visualization of what happens when two black holes pass one another, showing how the gravity of each warps the accretion disk of the other.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A during a brief static fire test ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission, Saturday, April 17, 2021, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX performs Falcon 9 static fire test ahead of second crew mission to ISS

SpaceX has performed a static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the second operational flight of the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station.
NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter using its Left Mastcam-Z camera, on Apr. 16, 2021 (Sol 55).

How NASA engineers are fixing the issue grounding Mars helicopter Ingenuity

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are working on fixing the issue with Ingenuity which is preventing the craft from going into flight mode.
Illustration of SpaceX Starship human lander design that will carry the first NASA astronauts to the surface of the Moon under the Artemis program.

SpaceX will develop the lander to carry NASA astronauts to the moon

NASA has selected SpaceX to develop a lander to take humans to the moon's surface, called the human landing system (HLS), in a contract worth $2.89 billion.
Life on Mars Castles Made of Sand

Castles made of sand: How we’ll make habitats with Martian soil

We can't just bring a bunch of lumber to Mars and build a habitat when we arrive. Instead, NASA wants to make habitats with the red planet's natural resources
Castles made of sand: how we’ll make habitats with Martian soil

Castles made of sand: how we’ll make habitats with Martian soil

The luminous heart of the galaxy M61 dominates this image, framed by its winding spiral arms threaded with dark tendrils of dust. As well as the usual bright bands of stars, the spiral arms of M61 are studded with ruby-red patches of light. Tell-tale signs of recent star formation, these glowing regions lead to M61’s classification as a starburst galaxy.

Hubble captures a spectacular ‘face-on’ Starburst galaxy

Scientists at the Hubble Space Telescope have shared another spectacular image of space showing galaxy M61 with its spiral arms and regions of star formation.
Both sides of the James Webb Space Telescope's sunshield were lifted vertically in preparation for the folding of the sunshield layers.

James Webb telescope packs away its massive sunshield to ready for launch

The massive sunshield of NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope has been folded away for the last time before its launch.
Astronomers have discovered two pairs of quasars in the distant Universe, about 10 billion light-years from Earth. In each pair, the two quasars are separated by only about 10,000 light-years, making them closer together than any other double quasars found so far away. The proximity of the quasars in each pair suggests that they are located within two merging galaxies. Quasars are the intensely bright cores of distant galaxies, powered by the feeding frenzies of supermassive black holes. One of the distant double quasars is depicted in this illustration.

Hubble identifies a 10-billion-year-old pair of quasars in merging galaxies

A new study using Hubble has identified not one but two pairs of quasars in galaxies which are merging, giving clues about the formation of galaxies.
At 24 feet (7.3 meters) across each, Lucy’s two solar panels underwent initial deployment tests in January 2021. In this photo, a technician at Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado, inspects one of Lucy’s arrays during its first deployment. These massive solar arrays will power the Lucy spacecraft throughout its entire 4-billion-mile, 12-year journey through space as it heads out to explore Jupiter’s elusive Trojan asteroids

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft unfurls its solar panels ahead of launch

Later this year, a NASA spacecraft named Lucy will launch on a 12-year mission to visit the asteroid belt. Lucy recently unfurled its solar panels in a test.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocked its rotor blades, allowing them to spin freely, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

First flight of Mars helicopter Ingenuity delayed until next week

We'll have to wait a little longer to see data on the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, due to an issue detected during a test of the rotors.
The Soyuz MS-18 rocket blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying three Expedition 65 crew members to the space station.

10 crew members cram aboard International Space Station, but not for long

Three new astronauts arrived at the ISS yesterday, and it'll be a tight squeeze for a few days as there are 10 people now on the station.
Brown dwarfs are often called “failed stars.” They form like stars but are not massive enough to fuse hydrogen into helium as stars do. More like giant planets, brown dwarfs can often have storms in their atmospheres, as depicted in this illustration. Astronomers have recently discovered three brown dwarfs that spin faster than any other ever discovered. Each one completes a single rotation in roughly an hour, about 10 times faster than normal.

These three planets spin so fast that they’re about to tear themselves apart

Astronomers have identified three brown dwarfs which are spinning ten times as fast as a typical planet, so fast that they are on the verge of being torn apart.
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept illustration. The spacecraft launched 20 years ago on April 7, 2001.

NASA’s Odyssey orbiter celebrates 20 years of mapping Mars

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Mars since 2002.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is seen in a close-up taken by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard the Perseverance rover. This image was taken on April 5, 2021, the 45th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

How to watch the NASA live stream about Ingenuity’s first flight on Mars

Tiny helicopter Ingenuity is set to make history this weekend, as it is about to become the first aircraft to be flown on another planet.
Extraterrestrial Energy Life on Mars

Power plants on other planets: How we’ll generate electricity on Mars

The first Mars explorers will need electricity to survive -- but how do you generate power on a dusty planet where solar energy is in short supply?
Extraterrestrial Energy Life on Mars

Power plants on other planets: How we’ll generate electricity on Mars