The Dragon capsule sits atop a Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A. Credit: Polaris Program/John Kraus (Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) A billionaire entrepreneur and aviator, a Thunderbird pilot, a former NASA biomedical flight controller, and an experienced astronaut training program lead are preparing to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s…

A radio telescope at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia J. Seymour/Green Bank Observatory Radio telescopes observing the cosmos face growing challenges because of electromagnetic interference from thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit. Now, experiments involving SpaceX’s Starlink satellites have shown how to virtually eliminate one form of this problem. As these kind…

When photographer Josh Dury set out to photograph the peak of the Perseid meteor shower overnight on Aug. 12 and Aug. 13, little did he know he’d be treated to a truly special cosmic display. The breathtaking image Dury captured shows not only Perseid meteors raining down through the sky but also northern lights and…

The Martian Robotic Rover workshop in progress. Gulf Today, Staff Reporter The Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences, and Technology (SAASST), affiliated with the University of Sharjah (UoS), conducted a three-day workshop titled “Martian Robotic Rover 2.1,” delivered by the Planetarium and Outreach Department team. The workshop is part of SAASST’s commitment to enhancing the…

In Southampton, England, an astronomy student named Tom Bickle made a remarkable discovery while pursuing his passion for stargazing. In his spare time, Bickle enjoys blasting heavy metal music while meticulously analyzing time-lapses of the night sky, searching for elusive objects at the edge of our solar system. During one of these sessions, Bickle noticed…

The so-called hypervelocity object, which is either a low-mass star or a brown dwarf, is traveling through the Milky Way at around a million miles an hour. In his spare time, Tom Bickle, an astronomy student in Southampton, England, likes to blast heavy metal while combing through time-lapses of the night sky, hunting for traces…

The International Space Station, as photographed by astronauts in October 2018. Credit: NASA Although it may seem hard to believe, the International Space Station (ISS) is nearing the end of its operational lifespan. Some readers might’ve even been born after the first section of the ISS was launched in 1998 and have never lived in…

The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico detected radio signals similar to the Wow! signal NAIC/Arecibo Observatory/NSF An unexplained radio signal detected in 1977 known as the Wow! signal, which some have interpreted as an alien message, may have been the result of a natural galactic laser-like beam. On 15 August 1977, the Big Ear radio…

Researchers may have discovered the secret ingredient of planet growth, which causes some worlds to grow rapidly in disks of gas and dust around infant stars. The model could be of specific value in understanding the growth of the solar system’s giant planets. Scientists have a fairly good understanding of how the rocky inner planets…

Considering regulation for the space industry now could prevent the proliferation of colonial practices later. Credit: NASA The past decade has seen a rapid expansion of the commercial space industry. Rival nations are competing for prime military and economic positions beyond the Earth. Public and private entities are clamoring to mine the Moon, and a growing halo of…