James Webb Space Telescope's Christmas Day launch confirmed | SpaceX Dragon cargo ship delivers Christmas presents (and supplies) to space station | Winner of Blue Origin's $28 million auction to fly with 5 'space warriors' next year
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Arianespace, the European company responsible for launching the James Webb Space Telescope, confirmed in a tweet on Wednesday (Dec. 22) afternoon that they were still targeting Christmas Day (Saturday, Dec. 25) for the launch of the massive observatory. The rocket, an Ariane 5, will roll out to the launch pad at Kourou, French Guiana, on Thursday morning (Dec. 23), the company noted.
A SpaceX Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station early Wednesday (Dec. 22), carrying with it a holiday haul of science gear and Christmas treats for the astronauts living on the orbital outpost. The autonomous Dragon resupply ship docked itself at the orbital outpost at 3:41 a.m. EST (0841 GMT), ahead of its planned 4:30 a.m. docking time. It parked itself at the space-facing port on the station's Harmony module, with NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn monitoring the docking from inside the station.
The identity of Blue Origin's spaceflight auction winner is no longer a mystery. Justin Sun, the founder and CEO of the blockchain platform Tron, announced today (Dec. 22) that he's the person who paid $28 million for a seat aboard Blue Origin's first crewed spaceflight. That mission launched on July 20, carrying Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and three other people to suborbital space on the company's New Shepard spacecraft. The then-unnamed auction winner was not among them, however, remaining groundbound due to scheduling conflicts, Blue Origin representatives said at the time.
Astronomers have discovered dozens of new "rogue" planets, roughly doubling the known number of these mysterious free-roaming worlds. A team of researchers found a collection of at least 70 exoplanets without parent stars — the largest single group of rogue planets ever found — in a patch of space about 420 light-years from Earth, a new study reports.
Discovered nearly a year ago, Comet Leonard is on its final tour of Earth's neighborhood, lighting up the night sky for viewers this holiday season. Comet Leonard — the brightest and most anticipated comet of the year — was discovered by Gregory Leonard, a senior research specialist at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, in January 2021. The comet was spotted, somewhat accidentally, using the Catalina Sky Survey's 1.5-meter (60-inch) telescope at the Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory, located in the Santa Catalina Mountains in Arizona.
What's the secret ingredient that has supported scientists at NASA in creating the most powerful space telescope in history? Music. The James Webb Space Telescope is set to launch on Saturday (Dec. 25), more than 25 years after development on the observatory began in 1996. Working on this mission for all that time, team members at NASA found themselves connecting over not just the telescope, but also a shared love of music. The result is a band called "Outta Scope."
