'Hidden Figures' awarded Congressional Gold Medals | Our solar system may be much larger than thought | Satellite tracker photographs secret spacecraft
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Although they may never completely shed the label, the women who worked for NASA as human computers during the space race are no longer "hidden figures," and they now have a medal to prove it.
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(NASA, ESA, J. Jee (University of California, Davis), J. Hughes (Rutgers University), F. Menanteau (Rutgers University and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), C. Sifon (Leiden Observatory), R. Mandelbum (Carnegie Mellon University), L. Barrientos (Universidad Catolica de Chile), and K. Ng (University of California, Davis))
A new algorithm will search images of colliding galaxy clusters for evidence of self-interacting dark matter.
Last night the Harvest Moon Supermoon lunar eclipse put on a spectacular show for people worldwide with at least some portion of the lunar eclipse visible to over 50% of the world's population. We'll have to wait until March 13-14, 2025 for the next lunar eclipse which will be a dramatic total lunar eclipse. But until then, let's sit back, relax and enjoy the celestial show that our lunar neighbor put on for us last night. Both the lunar eclipse and full moon resulted in some simply stunning photographs.
Rocket Lab plans to launch five satellites for a French technology company today (Sept. 18), and you can watch live. The Rocket Lab launch, using the company's Electron rocket, is scheduled to occur from New Zealand at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT or 11 a.m. local time in New Zealand on Thursday, Sept. 19). Rocket Lab will livestream a webcast 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch on Space.com as well. The launch window is instantaneous.
The saga of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (pronounced Choo-cheen-SHAHN -ATLAS), is now coming down the home stretch. When the Purple Mountain Observatory (Tsuchinshan) near Nanjing, China photographed a faint object in mid-January 2023, it was initially thought to be an asteroid. From Aug. 12 until just a few days ago, the comet had been lost to most ground-based observers due to its proximity to the sun. But on Sept. 11, Australian comet observer Terry Lovejoy was able to photograph Tsuchinshan-ATLAS from Wellington Point, Queensland, Australia, while still deeply immersed in bright morning twilight.
The next space station astronaut mission will delay one day to Sept. 25, "to complete prelaunch preparations and ensure separation between operations", NASA officials wrote in a Sept. 12 statement. Officials did not elaborate on which operations are affected, but the prelaunch preparation is complex: Crew-9 will be the first human launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, which normally has infrastructure available for satellite missions. Humans require a launch tower with walkable access to the spacecraft, among many other changes.
New research has shed doubt upon the nature of a distant "dead star" that exists in a binary system with an active stellar companion. Scientists behind the research think this stellar corpse is actually a monster-sized white dwarf. The discovery raises the question of how the binary's "living" star has managed to survive in close proximity to such a stellar corpse without being dragged towards it and violently consumed. The study is detailed on the pre-print website Arxiv.org and has been submitted to the Open Journal of Astrophysics.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to fine SpaceX more than $630,000 for allegedly failing to comply with regulations on two launches last year. "Safety drives everything we do at the FAA, including a legal responsibility for the safety oversight of companies with commercial space transportation licenses," FAA Chief Counsel Marc Nichols said in an emailed statement today (Sept. 17). "Failure of a company to comply with the safety requirements will result in consequences," he added.
Most space mission systems historically have used one spacecraft designed to complete an entire mission independently. Whether it was a weather satellite or a human-crewed module like Apollo, nearly every spacecraft was deployed and performed its one-off mission completely on its own. But today, space industry organizations are exploring missions with many satellites working together. For example, SpaceX's Starlink constellations include thousands of satellites. And new spacecraft could soon have the capabilities to link up or engage with other satellites in orbit for repairs or refueling.
