Week in images: 6 - 10 December 2021
Space News & Blog Articles
Tune into the SpaceZE News Network to stay updated on industry news from around the world.
Watch live: Alan Shepard’s daughter, Micheal Strahan among six launching to space Saturday
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION
Best mirrorless cameras
The 11 best mirrorless cameras available to buy today for both stills photography and video.
Blue Origin targeting early Saturday morning (Dec. 11) for launch of GMA host Michael Strahan, 5 others
Blue Origin's third crewed mission is expected to lift off early Saturday morning (Dec. 11).
How to watch Blue Origin launch GMA host Michael Strahan and crew to space Saturday
Blue Origin's third crewed launch, targeted for Saturday morning (Dec. 11), will feature an 11-minute flight to suborbital space and back.
Building a private space station: Q&A with Axiom Space CTO Matt Ondler
Space.com caught up with Axiom Space's Matt Ondler recently to discuss the company's space station plans and the outlook for private industry in low Earth orbit, among other things.
Black hole jet boasts double helix structure molded by powerful magnetic fields
An extraordinary galactic jet ejected from a supermassive black hole boasts a corkscrew-like helical structure, new ground-based telescope views reveal.
Science with Webb: the nearby cosmos
Video: 00:00:57
The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) is designed to answer fundamental questions about the Universe.
This Week's Sky at a Glance, December 10 – 18
Comet Leonard switches from low in the dawn to low in the dusk this week; you'll need those binocs. The Venus-Saturn-Jupiter line slides westward. And the high full moon of December rides across the sky in Taurus, at the top of the ecliptic.
Earth from Space: Fairbanks, Alaska
The city of Fairbanks, the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and its surroundings, are featured in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image.
Astronaut applicants thanked as ESA contacts all candidates
Applicants to ESA’s astronaut selection are being thanked for their patience as thousands of acceptance or rejection notifications are distributed to candidates across Europe.
'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 4, Episode 4 ends with a surprise you won't see coming
"All Is Possible" is probably the best episode of Season 4 so far.
Hubble is Fully Operational Once Again
In the history of space exploration, there are a handful of missions that have set new records for ruggedness and longevity. On Mars, the undisputed champion is the Opportunity rover, which was slated to run for 90 days, but remained in operation for 15 years instead! In orbit around Mars, that honor goes to the 2001 Mars Odyssey, which is still in operation 20 years after it rendezvoused with the Red Planet.
NASA’s New Asteroid Impact Monitoring System Comes Online
An asteroid striking Earth is a genuine possibility. There are tens of thousands of asteroids classified as Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), and we’re finding around 3,000 more each year. The number of new detections will see an uptick in the next few years as better survey telescopes come online.
Company Tests Iodine Thruster in Space for the First Time
Ion thrusters have played second fiddle to chemical rockets for most of the history of space exploration. Part of that is because of their inability to launch payloads into orbit. But in space, their high thrust-to-weight ratio has plenty of appeal. Other features have held the technology back, including the difficulty of working with the thruster’s fuel source – xenon. Now, a team of engineers and scientists from ThrustMe, a French start-up that focuses on developing advanced propulsions systems, have developed an ion thruster that works on an entirely new and much easier to use material – iodine.
Astronomers spy record-breaking eruption on young sunlike star
Astronomers may have, for the first time, detected a sunlike star erupting with a giant outburst 10 times larger than anything similar ever seen from our sun.
Book excerpt: 'Space Forces' (Verso, 2021) examines spaceflight visions
Ideas about space exploration look different depending on who comes up with them, in what surroundings and for what purposes.
New book 'Space Forces' examines the cultural drivers of space exploration
Space exploration doesn't happen in a vacuum. Instead, our ideas of space exploration are shaped by our cultural contexts, according to architecture and urban design professor Fred Scharmen.
Total Solar Eclipse: Reports from Antarctica
Sky & Telescope and friends report on the total solar eclipse that occurred over Antarctica earlier this week.
NASA Launches New X-ray Explorer
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer will shed new light on energetic and enigmatic sources such as magnetars, supernovae, and black holes.
DJI FPV review
The popular DJI FPV drone makes FPV flying a little less scary and much more accessible to newcomers.
