Tonight (May 19) is the new moon, and it's a rare "black moon," which occurs approximately once every 33 months.
Space News & Blog Articles
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Blue Origin will build NASA's new moon lander for Artemis astronauts
Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander will take astronauts to the lunar surface in 2029, on the Artemis 5 mission. It's the second NASA moon lander for astronauts, after SpaceX's Starship.
Watch this giant sunspot erupt in barrage of powerful solar flares as it turns to face Earth (video)
The sun has released a barrage of solar flares in the past 24 hours. The culprit? A giant sunspot that's slowly rotating to directly face Earth — and it's not alone.
Jammed radar boom on Jupiter-bound JUICE probe finally freed
Artist’s concept of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer with all its antenna deployed. Credit: European Space Agency
After three weeks of intense analysis and troubleshooting, European Space Agency flight controllers have finally succeeded in freeing a jammed 52-foot (16-meter) boom critical to the Jupiter-bound JUICE probe’s ice-penetrating radar instrument.
Watch the moon, Venus and Mars engage in a celestial dance next week
See the moon shine between Venus and Mars next week as the two planets, along with, Pollux and Castor engage in a series of interesting configurations.
Scientists just grew a black hole disk in a lab to better understand how they feed
Scientists have created a rotating disk of plasma in the lab that mimics the accretion disks that surround black holes, gradually feeding them and facilitating their growth.
How to watch Shazam! Fury of the Gods
Billy Batson and his foster siblings have returned in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Here’s everything you need to know, including where to watch it online.
Live coverage: SpaceX scrubs Falcon 9 launch attempt in California
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with 16 satellites for OneWeb’s internet network and five satellites for Iridium’s voice and data relay constellation. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
SpaceX Webcast
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A Brief History of the Discovery of Cosmic Voids
At first the sum total of large, orderly structure in the Universe appeared to arrive in two categories. There were the clusters of galaxies – an unoriginal but descriptive name – each a dense ball with anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred galaxies, all bound together by their mutual gravitational embrace. And then there were the field galaxies, lonely wanderers set apart and adrift from the clusters, not bound to anyone but themselves. That was it: the clusters of galaxies, the field galaxies, and the megaparsecs of emptiness that enveloped them all.
Building a Satellite out of Wood? Use Magnolia
Typically when you think of a satellite, you think of a metal box with electronic components inside it. But that is simply because most satellites have been made that way throughout history. There is nothing against using other materials to build satellites. Now, a team of researchers from Japan has completed testing on another type of material that could eventually be used on an actual satellite – magnolia wood.
'Do what scares you:' 3 tips to succeed from Artemis 2 moon astronaut Christina Koch
Astronaut Christina Koch is no stranger to hard work, or success. Here are 3 tips the NASA Artemis 2 mission specialists has for kids hoping to walk on Mars one day.
SpaceX's Ax-2 mission for Axiom Space in photos (gallery)
A new crew of four people is bound for orbit on the Ax-2 mission, which will fly to the International Space Station using SpaceX hardware. See photos of the Ax-2 mission here.
This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 19 – 28
As Venus and Mars move toward each other in the western dusk, Venus brightens and Mars shrinks. Just like they always do. This week the Moon hops over both.
Earth from Space: Oslo, Norway
Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Oslo, Norway’s capital and largest city, and host of the 2023 Global Space Conference on Climate Change, taking place on 23–25 May.
Watch SpaceX launch its 2nd mission of the day this morning
SpaceX plans to launch its second mission in a span of seven hours on Friday morning (May 19), and you can watch the action live.
Mars Has a Thick Crust. Its Internal Heat Mainly Comes from Radioactivity
How thick is the crust of Mars? This question is what a recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters attempted to answer as it reported on data from a magnitude 4.7 marsquake recorded in May 2022 by NASA’s InSight lander, which remains the largest quake ever recorded on another planetary body. As it turns out, this data helped provide estimates of Mars’ global crustal thickness, along with a unique discovery regarding the crust in the northern and southern hemispheres, and how the interior of Mars produces its heat.
Live coverage: SpaceX counting down to midnight-hour Starlink launch
Watch our live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the Starlink 6-3 mission at 12:41 a.m. EDT (0441 UTC) on May 19 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Follow us on Twitter.
Could We Resurrect the Spitzer Space Telescope?
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope served the astronomy community well for 16 years. From its launch in 2003 to the end of its operations in January 2020, its infrared observations fuelled scientific discoveries too numerous to list.
Senate Republicans criticize NASA for its climate change and diversity efforts
Following recent diversity and climate change initiatives by NASA, two Senate republicans accused the space agency of straying from its core space exploration mission.
Fatty Acids Might Exist in Space
A team of physicists have discovered that the environment of a molecular cloud in interstellar space can support the existence of fatty acids, a key component of life on Earth.
The History of the US Space Program
The history of the US space program is rich and spans several decades. Here is a brief overview of its major milestones:
