NASA spacecraft reveal interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS brightened rapidly as it swooped behind the sun
05 Nov
Science & Technology

NASA spacecraft reveal interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS brightened rapidly as it swooped behind the sun

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Researchers and amateur astronomer Worachate Boonplod kept track of 3I/ATLAS using GOES-19 weather satellite data. (Image credit: Image: CCOR-1/GOES-19/NOAA. Processed and annotated by Worachate Boonplod.)Comet 3I/ATLAS is rapidly brightening as it swings behind the sun, spacecraft observations have revealed. The comet has been flying around the sun, obscuring it from Earth’s view, to reach perihelion (its closest point to our star) on Thursday (Oct. 29).Yet, while most of the world has been waiting for it to re-emerge, some researchers and amateur astronomers have been using spacecraft to follow its path.On Oct. 18, amateur astronomer and seasoned comet hunter Worachate Boonplod spotted the comet in images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-19 weather satellitewhich uses an instrument called CCOR-1 to observe the sun as part of its regular space weather monitoring. Boonplod noted...
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‘It’s kind of surreal that it happened to us’: Rural West Texas woman witnesses NASA space junk as it lands in her neighbor’s yard
20 Oct
Science & Technology

‘It’s kind of surreal that it happened to us’: Rural West Texas woman witnesses NASA space junk as it lands in her neighbor’s yard

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When Ann Walter looked outside her rural West Texas home, she didn’t know what to make of the bulky object slowly drifting across the sky.She was even more surprised to see what actually landed in her neighbor’s wheat field: a boxy piece of scientific equipment about the size of a sport-utility vehicle, attached to a massive parachute, adorned with NASA stickers. She called the local sheriff’s office and learned that NASA, indeed, was looking for a piece of equipment that had gone lost. “It’s crazy, because when you’re standing on the ground and see something in the air, you don’t realize how big it is,” she said. “It was probably a 30-foot parachute. It was huge.” Walter said she soon got a call from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, which launches large unmanned, high altitude research balloons more...
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Moving NASA Space Shuttle to Texas from DC Could Damage It, Experts Say
20 Oct
Science & Technology

Moving NASA Space Shuttle to Texas from DC Could Damage It, Experts Say

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Even in retirement, the space shuttle Discovery exudes power, seen across a hangar crowded with planes and jets at its museum home in Chantilly, Va. Charred and worn from its record 39 missions to space, the stalwart of NASA’s shuttle fleet evokes awe in its one-million-plus visitors every year.But it won’t be there for much longer, perhaps. Discoverythe showpiece of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, may be removed from its retirement home at the hands of perhaps the most unstoppable force in the universe—politics.In October came news reports of White House budget office plans to ship Discovery to Houston, removing it from its Smithsonian home at the behest of powerful Texas lawmakers. Uprooting the spacecraft, the workhorse of the space agency’s shuttle fleet, from...
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Hidden at Fort Knox for years, ‘space-flown’ Sacagawea gold coins sell for millions
22 Sep
Science & Technology

Hidden at Fort Knox for years, ‘space-flown’ Sacagawea gold coins sell for millions

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