outer space

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Tonight Could Bring Some of 2024's Final Fireballs

Annual Geminids meteor shower is set to peak on Friday evening

(Newser) - The Geminids—among the few major meteor showers to come from asteroids—peak on Friday, one of the year's last chances to see fireballs in the sky. The shower often produces meteors with a distinctly more yellow glow, likely due to the unusual origin material, said Sally Brummel, planetarium...

Sombrero Galaxy Might Need a New Name
Pair of Photos 20 Years Apart
Show a Big Galaxy Change
in case you missed it
Dec 7, 2024 6:00 AM CST

Pair of Photos 20 Years Apart Show a Big Galaxy Change

Photo by Webb Space Telescope shows Sombrero Galaxy looking less sombrero-ish than Hubble did

(Newser) - Late last month, NASA released its "Astronomy Picture of the Day" —actually a combo of two pictures, taken two decades apart. The first is a 20-year-old photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the so-called Sombrero Galaxy, a galaxy nearly 30 million light-years away whose oval brim...

Want to Go to Outer Space? Olivia Rodrigo Won't Date You
Olivia Rodrigo Has
One Big Dating
Deal-Breaker
in case you missed it
Nov 9, 2024 4:20 PM CST

Olivia Rodrigo Has One Big Dating Deal-Breaker

Sorry, Elon, but the singer says she doesn't want to go out with men who want to go outer space

(Newser) - Everyone's got their own red flags when it comes to romance, and Olivia Rodrigo has a very particular one that has led her to start posing an "oddly specific" question of guys on their first date, per People . "I always ask them if they think that they...

Some Votes Came From Out of This World

NASA's didn't let little thing like being on a work trip 250 miles above Earth stop astronauts from voting

(Newser) - Work trips take Americans away from their polls on Election Day all the time, so we have absentee ballots. Work trips take astronauts a bit beyond the reach of standard absentee ballots, so NASA put together the Space Communication and Navigation Program. As Quartz reports, four astronauts aboard the International...

Moon Is Worth Watching This Week
Harvest Moon
Is Worth
Checking Out
Tuesday
UPDATED
Sep 17, 2024 11:44 AM CDT

Harvest Moon Is Worth Checking Out Tuesday

Partial lunar eclipse, plus a supermoon, will be on view

(Newser) - Here's your reminder to get ready for a partial lunar eclipse and supermoon, all rolled into one. The spectacle will be visible in clear skies across North America and South America on Tuesday night, and in Africa and Europe on Wednesday morning, per the AP .
  • A partial lunar eclipse
...

NASA Spots a 'Super Jupiter'
NASA Spots
a 'Super Jupiter'
Jul 24, 2024 5:08 PM CDT

NASA Spots a 'Super Jupiter'

Planet takes more than a century to go around its star

(Newser) - A super Jupiter has been spotted around a neighboring star by the Webb Space Telescope—and it has a super orbit. As the AP reports, the planet is roughly the same diameter as Jupiter, but with six times the mass. Its atmosphere is also rich in hydrogen like Jupiter's....

Rivals: Musk's SpaceX Is an 'Anti-American' Empire

Critics gripe to 'NYT,' claiming space launch company is no 'accidental monopoly'

(Newser) - Elon Musk's SpaceX is the topic of conversation in the latest deep dive by the New York Times into his business practices, and the upshot is: His rivals aren't happy. They claim that although SpaceX is now a major player in the space launch arena, with NASA and...

Boeing Ready for Test Flight to ISS With Astronauts on Board
Why Boeing's
Astronaut Launch
Was Called Off
UPDATED
May 7, 2024 4:05 PM CDT

Why Boeing's Astronaut Launch Was Called Off

Buzzing valve raised concerns Monday night

(Newser) - Boeing's first astronaut launch was called off because of a valve problem on the rocket Monday night. The two NASA test pilots had just strapped into Boeing's Starliner capsule for a flight to the International Space Station when the countdown was halted, just two hours before the planned...

Satellite Lost in Space for 25 Years Reappears
Satellite Lost in Space
for 25 Years Reappears
in case you missed it
May 5, 2024 11:05 AM CDT

Satellite Lost in Space for 25 Years Reappears

S73-7 may have disappeared into a radar blind spot

(Newser) - A small, experimental satellite launched in failure in 1974 and lost to ground-based sensors for a quarter century has suddenly reappeared. On April 10, 1974, the large reconnaissance satellite KH-9 Hexagon ejected a much smaller, 26-inch-wide satellite, the Infra-Red Calibration Balloon or S73-7, which was supposed to inflate a balloon...

Lyrid Meteor Shower Is Here
Lyrid Meteor
Shower Is Here
Apr 18, 2024 12:31 PM CDT

Lyrid Meteor Shower Is Here

But at its peak, so is a nearly full moon

(Newser) - The Lyrid meteor shower is underway. But with a nearly full moon in the sky during the peak, it might be tough to see clearly. The Lyrids occur every year in mid- to late April. This year's peak activity happens Sunday into Monday, with 10 to 20 meteors expected...

Why It's 'Totality or Bust' for Some Eclipse Viewers

Writer Joel Achenbach captures the magic that happens in the path of totality

(Newser) - "Totality or bust," writes Joel Achenbach in an essay for the Washington Post . "That's the attitude of the serious eclipse aficionado." For the casual eclipse viewer outside the path of totality, Achenbach captures the "supernatural vibe" we'll be missing, which only occurs when...

You Might Catch Some Cool Aurora Action Monday

Geomagnetic storm watch due to solar flare could also interfere with radio transmissions, per NOAA

(Newser) - Space weather forecasters have issued a geomagnetic storm watch through Monday, saying an outburst of plasma from a solar flare could interfere with radio transmissions on Earth. It could also make for great aurora viewing. There's no reason for the public to be concerned, according to the alert issued...

Railroad on the Moon? It May Be in the Works

Northrop Grumman enlisted to explore construction, costs, and risks

(Newser) - Now that scientists have some ideas about how to build roads on the moon , focus is turning to a potential lunar railroad. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) envisions a future in which a network of rails covers the lunar surface, transporting humans, resources, and supplies from one...

NASA Has Successfully Nudged an Asteroid
NASA Did a Number
On the Asteroid It Hit
UPDATED
Mar 20, 2024 9:55 AM CDT

NASA Did a Number On the Asteroid It Hit

Dimorphos' shape was changed, in addition to its orbit time, a new study finds

(Newser) - It's safe to say NASA's test of whether an asteroid could be nudged off a collision path with Earth was a success. The DART spacecraft's impact with the asteroid Dimorphos not only shaved 33 minutes and 15 seconds off the time it takes to circle its parent...

Pentagon: Nothing to See Here About Extraterrestrials

DOD reviewed decades' worth of UFO probes, found no evidence of alien technology, cover-ups

(Newser) - For at least two years, the Defense Department's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has been reviewing nearly eight decades of government probes into alleged sightings of UFOs (also called UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena) and other alleged extraterrestrial happenings, and on Friday, the office released a lengthy, 60-page-plus report on...

NASA Watched 'Helplessly' as 2 Satellites Got Perilously Close

Space agency's TIMED spacecraft, defunct Russian satellite came within 65 feet of each other last week

(Newser) - Last week, a NASA satellite "almost got clobbered high above Earth." That's the scoop from Space.com , which reports on a near collision last Wednesday between the space agency's Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) research spacecraft, which has been in space studying data since...

NASA Hits the Jackpot on Its 'Rubble Return Goal'

OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned double the expected samples from asteroid Bennu

(Newser) - NASA finally has counted up all the asteroid samples returned by a spacecraft last fall—and it's double the rubble return goal. Officials reported Thursday that the Osiris-Rex spacecraft collected 4.29 ounces of dust and pebbles from asteroid Bennu. That's just over half a cup and the...

Scientists Envision a Massive Space Umbrella

Idea is to protect us from the sun's solar radiation

(Newser) - Sometimes, proposals to keep the Earth cool are too complicated for non-scientists to understand. And sometimes, they're like this one: "the equivalent of a giant beach umbrella, floating in outer space." That's from the New York Times in its coverage of a proposal being floated by...

Asteroid Size of Empire State Building Is About to Fly By Earth

2008 OS7 will come within 1.7M miles of our planet on Friday, though experts assure that it won't hit us

(Newser) - An asteroid as big as a skyscraper will pass within 1.7 million miles of Earth on Friday. But it's not on a collision course with us, as it will pass seven times the distance from Earth to the moon, per the AP . NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object...

Gravitational Wave Detector Will Be a 'Game-Changer'

2035 LISA mission will hunt for ripples in space-time

(Newser) - As part of his theory of general relativity, Albert Einstein predicated a body accelerating in space would create radiating ripples in space-time. He was, of course, correct. But he was wrong about one thing. Einstein believed gravitational waves, even those caused by the collision of massive objects, would be too...

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