Have you ever seen a comet-rise? This stunning real-time video shows the rise of Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) from the International Space Station (ISS). As the ISS orbits the Earth, Comet NEOWISE rises behind the Earth’s body, above the horizon.
Category: Space Exploration
Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner published a spectacular comet photo on his Twitter account (@ivan_mks63). He tweeted both in Russian and in English and said “During the next revolution I tried to capture the C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) comet a bit closer, the brightest one over the last 7 years. Its tail is quite clearly visible from the International Space Station!”
NASA’s New Horizons space probe is currently the farthest human-made object that is still able to take photographs. It was launched on January 19, 2006. Now the spacecraft is so far from Earth that the photos taken by New Horizons show nearby stars from an unearthly perspective (see notes 1).
Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space on October 11, 1984, now also becomes the first woman to reach the deepest point of the ocean, the Challenger Deep, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench. She also became only the eighth person ever to reach the Challenger Deep.
On 12 April, the International Day of Human Space Flight commemorates the first human – Yuri Gagarin – traveling to space in 1961, and the inaugural Space Shuttle mission on the same day in 1981.
Since Gagarin, humans have flown to space hundreds of times, including six missions to the moon, and have maintained a permanent space presence onboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) since November 2000.
But now new challenges are on the horizon, including returning to the moon and possibly going to Mars. We spoke to the head of ESA about why humans should go to space, the value of robotic exploration, and what role Europe has to play in the future.
By Jonathan O’Callaghan
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule arrives at the International Space Station (ISS) following up a historic liftoff with an equally smooth docking. The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule (named Endeavour by the crew) docked automatically to the ISS, no assistance needed.
How did I miss this for years? In this brilliant video below, software engineer Bret Copeland explains how to land the space shuttle… from space!
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Please use crewed, not manned
The American science communicator Emily Calandrelli (also known as The Space Gal, @TheSpaceGal on Twitter) published a very funny video on her Twitter account, which can be titled “Please use crewed, not manned”.
To explain her cause, Calandrelli used the popular “Joey, the famous ‘Friends’ character being taught French” meme, where Phoebe hopelessly tries to teach Joey French.
Calandrelli also posted that video on Facebook saying “a friendly reminder”.
With dreams of Mars on the minds of both NASA and Elon Musk, long-distance crewed missions through space are coming. But you might be surprised to learn that modern rockets don’t go all that much faster than the rockets of the past.