StrangeSights: Kosovo honours Blair with life-size statue; NASA asked to help find Loch Ness Monster; and, Alfa Romeo changes car name after Milan criticism
DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
Forecasts for cloudy skies cast shadow over North American solar eclipse
Reuters Cloudy skies forecast for Monday could spell disappointment for many of the millions of North Americans hoping to glimpse the continent’s first total solar eclipse since 2017, possibly turning this spellbinding celestial phenomenon into a dud. Some regions that more typically experience fair skies in April within the “path of totality” – the narrow […]
White House directs NASA to create time standard for the Moon
Washington DC, US Reuters The White House on Tuesday directed NASA to establish a unified standard of time for the Moon and other celestial bodies, as the United States aims to set international norms in space amid a growing lunar race among nations and private companies. The head of the White House Office of Science […]
SpaceX Starship disintegrates after completing most of third test flight
Boca Chica, Texas Reuters SpaceX’s Starship rocket, designed to eventually send astronauts to the moon and beyond, completed nearly an entire test flight through space on its third try on Thursday, getting farther than ever before, but disintegrated on its return to Earth. During a webcast of the flight, SpaceX commentators said mission control lost […]
SpaceX launches eighth long-duration crew for International Space Station orbit
Cape Canaveral, Florida, US Reuters A SpaceX rocket safely lifted off from Florida on Sunday night carrying a crew of three US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on their way to the International Space Station to begin a six-month science mission in Earth orbit. The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew […]
Essay: US Moon landing marks new active phase of lunar science, with commercial launches of landers that will study solar wind and peer into the universe’s dark ages
JACK BURNS, professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, looks at how the latest Moon landing – the first by the US since the Apollo missions – is being used to advance scientific study…
Moon lander Odysseus tipped sideways on lunar surface but “alive and well”
Reuters The Moon lander dubbed Odysseus is “alive and well” but resting on its side a day after its white-knuckle touchdown as the first private spacecraft ever to reach the lunar surface, and the first from the US since 1972, the company behind the vehicle said on Friday. Houston-based Intuitive Machines also revealed that human […]
US achieves first Moon landing in half century with private spacecraft
Updated: 5:30pm (AEDT) Reuters A spacecraft built and flown by Texas-based company Intuitive Machines landed near the Moon’s south pole on Thursday, the first US touchdown on the lunar surface in more than half a century and the first ever achieved by the private sector. NASA, with several research instruments aboard the vehicle, hailed the […]
Essay: Cybersecurity for satellites is a growing challenge, as threats to space-based infrastructure grow
SYLVESTER KACZMAREK, chief technology officer at Imperial College London, looks at the increasingly threats to satellite security…
Know It All: Moon landings
Japan recently became the fifth country to land a craft successfully on the Moon. DAVID ADAMS looks at some facts and figures about that and previous landings…