Rocket Lab launching two Earth-observation satellites today: Watch live | SpaceX will launch a new NASA X-ray telescope early Thursday | Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, two crewmates arrive at International Space Station
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Rocket Lab will launch two satellites tonight (Dec. 8), and you can watch the action live. A Rocket Lab Electron launcher carrying two commercial Earth-observation spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from the company's New Zealand site Wednesday during a 125-minute window that opens at 6:45 p.m. EST (2345 GMT; 12:45 p.m. on Dec. 9 local New Zealand time).
SpaceX will launch a new space observatory for NASA overnight and you can watch the action live online. The private spaceflight company will launch the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) on one of its previously flown Falcon 9 rockets. The frequent flier is scheduled to blast off at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT) from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center here in Florida.
Three people just arrived at the International Space Station — and two of them are space tourists. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, video producer Yozo Hirano and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin made contact with the orbiting lab Wednesday (Dec. 8) at 8:40 a.m. EST (1340 GMT). The trio left Earth just six hours earlier, launching atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday at 2:38 a.m. EST (1738 GMT).
Weather has delayed Blue Origin's third crewed launch by at least 48 hours, pushing off liftoff of "Good Morning America" (GMA) anchor Michael Strahan and five other individuals. The launch is now set for Saturday (Dec. 11), rather than Thursday (Dec. 9), due to windy conditions at Launch Site One in Van Horn, Texas.
The onlytotal solar eclipse of 2021 was one few could see and this new photo from a spacecraft nearly 1 million miles from Earth shows why. The photo, taken by NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), tracked the solar eclipse as the moon's shadow passed over a remote stretch of Antarctica and the south pole on Dec. 4. Taken from a distance of more than 950,000 miles (1.5 million km), the moon's shadow appears as a dark blemish at the very bottom of our world in the image.
A newfound alien world may force scientists to rethink some of their ideas about planet formation. An exoplanet 11 times more massive than Jupiter resides in b Centauri, a young binary star system about 325 light-years from Earth, a new study reports. The planet, known as b Centauri b, is among the heaviest ever found. And combined, the two stars in b Centauri are six to 10 times heftier than our sun, making the system by far the most massive in which a planet has been discovered to date. b Centauri is also the hottest known planet-hosting star system, researchers said.
The moon and its planetary pals are putting on quite the sky show this week. The moon has already visited Venus and Saturn in the night sky over the past few days, and tonight (Dec. 8) Earth's natural satellite will sidle up next to Jupiter. Look toward the western sky an hour or so after sunset to get a good look at the dazzling duo. Saturn and Venus will be part of that view as well, arrayed in a diagonal line extending downward and to the right of Jupiter.
Will Smith is in for a wild ride. Today (Dec. 8), National Geographic's new series "Welcome to Earth" drops on Disney Plus, showcasing Academy Award-nominated actor Will Smith in his latest role: explorer. In the series, Smith teams up with different scientists and explorers who take on incredible, nail-biting adventures across the globe. The six-episode limited series does a masterful job highlighting the awe-inspiring natural beauty of planet Earth.
Noah Hawley’s Alien TV series, which will debut exclusively on Hulu, is still a way off, but fans are eager to hear more from this take on the famous sci-fi horror franchise. Many of us expected Disney to put the IP on ice after their Fox takeover, but it appears that telling new stories set in that universe is a priority for the company – It has claimed so since 2019, but it'll be breaking new ground on TV first, giving theatrical Alien releases some breathing room.
