SpaceX launches its 32nd Dragon cargo mission to the ISS for NASA (video)
SpaceX launches its 32nd Dragon cargo to the ISS (video) | Space Quiz! Howl long is the journey to Jupiter for NASA's Lucy probe? | Lucy probe flies by asteroid Donaldjohanson on Easter
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SpaceX launched its 32nd cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) early Monday morning (April 21), carrying more than 3 tons of supplies and scientific hardware to the orbiting laboratory for NASA. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the uncrewed Cargo Dragon spacecraft lifted off Monday at 4:15 a.m. EDT (0815 GMT) from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Easter Sunday certainly hasn't been a day of rest for the astronomy community. All eyes are on NASA's asteroid-studying Lucy spacecraft, which should have had a close space rock encounter at 1:51 p.m. EDT (1751 GMT) on April 20, 2025. Launched in 2021, Lucy is on a 12-year journey to the orbit of Jupiter, during which the probe will perform flybys of eight Trojan asteroids in a quest to learn about the origins of the solar system, searching for elements that could spark the rise of life. But before Lucy gets there, the spacecraft will have time for a few dress rehearsals.
The Lyrid meteor shower is active between April 16 and April 25, and peaks on April 22. During the peak, Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream left behind by Comet Thatcher, which delivers the highest chance of a great shooting star show. This year, the best time to catch the Lyrid meteor shower will be in the predawn hours around 3 or 4 a.m. local time. That's when the sky is at its darkest, and the radiant -- the point in the sky from where the Lyrids appear to emanate -- has risen to the highest point in the sky. The higher the radiant climbs, the more meteors you're likely to see. But remember, don't look directly at the radiant; instead, look a little off to the side to catch the longest, brightest trails.
NASA's oldest active astronaut has redefined traveling "home" for your birthday, landing from the International Space Station on the same day that he turned 70. Don Pettit touched down on Saturday (April 19) with his Soyuz MS-26 crewmates, Aleksey Ovchinin, 53, and Ivan Vagner, 39. The U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts reached the ground in Kazakhstan at 9:20 p.m. EDT (0120 GMT or 6:20 a.m. local time April 20), seven months after they left Earth aboard the same spacecraft.
Dark matter may have contributed to the formation of giant black holes in the early universe, researchers propose in a new paper. More observations, especially with the James Webb Space Telescope, are revealing truly gigantic black holes that appeared in the relatively young universe. Just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, it would appear our cosmos was already home to black holes billions of times more massive than the sun.
SpaceX lofted yet another batch of next-gen spy satellites for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) this morning (April 20). A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's foggy Vandenberg Space Force Base today at 8:29 a.m. EDT (1229 GMT; 5:29 a.m. local California time), on a mission the NRO called NROL-145.
While slowly climbing the slopes of Mount Sharp -- a towering peak inside Mars' Gale Crater - NASA's Curiosity rover made a remarkable discovery: large deposits of carbon locked away in carbonate minerals. That may sound a little dry at first, but in reality this find could be a major piece of the puzzle in our search for ancient life on the Red Planet.
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