Fiery death of SpaceX Starlink satellites after geomagnetic storm captured on video | SpaceX says a geomagnetic storm just doomed 40 Starlink internet satellites | UAE's Hope spacecraft marks 1 year in orbit around Mars
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(Eddie Irizarry/Sociedad de Astronomia del Caribe)
A dramatic video serves as a memorial to a star-crossed satellite that lived fast and died very young. SpaceX launched 49 satellites to low Earth orbit on Feb. 3 to further beef up the company's huge and growing Starlink internet megaconstellation. But most of those newly lofted spacecraft will never beam any broadband signals down, thanks to a powerful sun eruption.
SpaceX is in the process of losing up to 40 brand-new Starlink internet satellites due to a geomagnetic storm that struck just a day after the fleet's launch last week. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 49 Starlink satellites on Thursday (Feb. 3) from NASA's historic Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A day later, a geomagnetic storm above Earth increased the density of the atmosphere slightly, increasing drag on the satellites and dooming most of them.
It's been a full year since the United Arab Emirates made history when its first-ever interplanetary mission slipped into orbit around Mars. The Emirates Mars Mission, also called Hope, launched in July 2020, arrived at the Red Planet seven months later and successfully entered orbit around Mars on Feb. 9, 2021. After a few months in orbit, the mission began its science observations, which are focused on the atmosphere and climate of Mars.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk will have a nice visual aid to point to during his highly anticipated Starship presentation on Thursday (Feb. 10). That talk is an update about Starship, the giant vehicle that SpaceX is developing to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond. Starship consists of two fully reusable elements: a huge booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft called Starship.
Jupiter's auroras are caused by a cosmic game of "tug-of-war," fueled by volcanoes on the planet's innermost moon, Io, new research suggests. NASA's Juno spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope have revealed new evidence suggesting Jupiter's rapid rotation and the release of sulfur and oxygen from volcanoes on Io — the most volcanically active world in the solar system — create an electric current system that drives the powerful auroras observed around the gas giant's poles.
It's been more than a year since scientists lost one of the most iconic telescopes ever built — and yet the collapse of the famed Arecibo Observatory remains something of a mystery.
With spring looming just around the corner and summer slowly coming into focus, space-loving filmgoers eagerly awaiting Disney/Pixar's Buzz Lightyear origin story, "Lightyear," have something new to cheer about with a freshly released trailer and poster for the animated sci-fi film. "Lightyear" enters our orbit on June 17, 2022 and it's poised to be one of the most anticipated movies of the year, with its plot chronicling the heroic history behind the most famous Space Ranger in the "Toy Story" universe.
