Frday’s high-altitude test flight for the SpaceX Starship SN15 prototype was scrubbed possibly due to bad weather. When the test occurs, will SN15 meet the same explosive fate as 4 earlier SpaceX Starships? Stay tuned.
Starship prototype - SN15 - undergoing a cryogenic test earlier this month (April, 2021)- at SpaceX's South Texas site. Image via SpaceX.
Mars is the only visible planet out after nightfall. You’ll find it descending in the west each evening in May 2021. Also watch for brilliant Venus and little Mercury low in the west, for a brief time after sunset. Bright Jupiter and ringed Saturn grace the morning sky.
View larger. | V. Srinivasagopalan caught both Venus (below) and Jupiter on September 22, 2018 from Bangalore, India. Remember, Venus is going into the sunset in October, 2018. Watch for it soon!
Check out the videos in this post to see the hypnotic pulse of swimming jellyfish. Their gentle movement belies a complex flow of water that make these creatures highly energy-efficient swimmers.
A moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) swimming in the Red Sea, off Egypt. Image via Alexander Vasenin / Wikimedia Commons.
Posted by Bruce McClure in Astronomy Essentials|23 hours ago
In 2021, the forecast calls for the greatest number of Eta Aquariid meteors to fall before dawn on May 5. But don’t discount May 4 or 6, either or both of which might provide a good sprinkling of meteors, too.
Eta Aquariid meteor coming straight from its radiant point - the Water Jar asterism in the constellation Aquarius, visible in the top left of this photo - captured by Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona on May 4, 2020. Thank you, Eliot!
In 2018, a small asteroid crashed into Earth, and scientists recovered pieces of it in a Botswana game reserve. Now the scientists have determined the space rock’s origin: Vesta, in the asteroid belt.
This is a fragment of asteroid 2018 LA that was discovered in Botswana. Image via Peter Jenniskens.
At Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa, some rocks show signs of movement, etching trails in the dry lake bed. It was an enduring mystery until quite recently.
Every year millions of tons of dust from the Sahara Desert are swirled up into the atmosphere and carried across the Atlantic. Research suggests that, as the climate changes, Saharan dust transport will decrease.
Satellite image of July 2020 "Godzilla" dust plume. Image via NASA.
Astronomers have managed to detect very long wavelength radio emission from a well-studied, repeating fast radio burst, called FRB 20180916B. What’s more, the longer wavelengths arrive 3 days after the shorter wavelength counterpart of the signal! Why?
A burst of radio emission from the repeating fast radio burst called 20180916B arrives at the LOFAR telescope in this illustration. The longest wavelength part of the signal (red) is far longer than has ever been seen from a fast radio burst before, and it is arriving about 3 days later than the short wavelength (higher frequency, shown in purple) part of the emission. The inset is an image of the host galaxy of this fast radio burst, fairly similar to our own Milky Way galaxy but 500 million light years away, and shows its location within it. Image via D. Futselaar/ S.P. Tendulkar/ ASTRON.
New research suggests that loss of water on land through ice melting and human-caused factors is changing the movement of Earth’s North and South Poles.
Composite image built from 15 satellite passes shows the Arctic and northern latitudes. Image via Norman Kuring, NASA/GSFC/Suomi NPP https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/78349/the-view-from-the-top/78349f
Posted by EarthSky in Human World | Today's Image|4 days ago
The first of 2 spring supermoons in 2021 took place on April 26 or 27 (depending on your location on Earth). We received many wonderful submissions from you, our readers. Here’s a gallery of some favorites. Thanks to all who submitted!
NASA has released a cool new visualization showing two massive black holes orbiting each other in a stunning display of light. The intense gravity and other phenomena all play a part in producing this mesmerizing display. Watch here.