Space Stuff

Scientists spot two massive stars creating a pinwheel of dust
A massive star is ejecting material at two different speeds as it spins rapidly.
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After delays, SpaceX to attempt historic launch Monday
There's a lot going on here, from a record number of launches to dozens of smallsats.

Monday a.m. Update: Originally scheduled to launch on November 19, the Spaceflight SSO-A mission has been delayed three times due to the need for additional rocket checks as well as some weather concerns. Now the historic mission—SpaceX will attempt to launch the same Falcon 9 first stage for the third time, set an annual record for total launches, and fly the most smallsats into space on a US booster—is scheduled for Monday at 1:32pm ET (18:32 UTC).
 
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Very long, opinion heavy piece from Ars about missions I've been pretty excited about. I haven't read it all yet (at work) but thought I'd post the link and a snippet here. Feel free to disect:
A congressman’s loss clouds the future of two demanding missions to Europa
During a recent update, Clipper planners revealed they are looking at Falcon Heavy.
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US Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.) walks toward the Rummel Creek Elementary polling place on Election Day 2018. He lost his seat, which may have ripple effects well beyond Earth.

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif.—The political attack ad lunged straight for the jugular. In seeking to unseat Republican incumbent John Culberson from the House of Representatives, a pro-Democratic political action committee advertisement sneered at his enthusiasm for science and passion for finding life on another world for the first time.

"He wanted NASA to search for aliens on Europa, an icy moon millions of miles away," the narrator said. "For Houston, Lizzie Fletcher will invest in humans, not aliens."

The non-partisan Planetary Society condemned the advertisement as anti-science. "This dismissal of a scientifically valid area of study—one that could potentially reshape entire fields of science—should be roundly rejected by any citizen committed to a modern scientific society, regardless of political affiliation," the organization's chief advocate, Casey Dreier, argued.

It was to no avail. On election night in 2018, Houston lawyer and nascent politician Lizzie Fletcher soundly defeated Culberson by five points in what had been a traditionally Republican district. After 18 years in the House, Culberson, a conservative who had achieved enough seniority to chair the subcommittee that sets NASA's budget, drowned beneath a blue wave.

In California, a few dozen engineers and scientists who worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory had watched the election closely. Regardless of their political affiliations, they felt dismay as this Republican went down. Since 2013, the Texas congressman had pumped more than $1 billion into two daring missions to an icy moon that just might harbor life in its subsurface oceans. One of these missions, the Clipper, would make dozens of close flybys of Europa to survey its ice and take all sorts of detailed measurements. The second, the Lander, would seek to survive for about a month on a swaying ice world bathed in Jupiter's harsh radiation.
 
After 26 straight successes, SpaceX fails to land Falcon 9 it wanted back
"Some landing systems are not redundant."
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Wednesday's launch of a Falcon 9 rocket went well. The landing? Not so much.

Something unexpected happened after the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station—the first-stage booster did not come back to Earth as intended. Instead, it made an unscheduled landing in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the Florida coast.

At about 7 minutes and 25 seconds after the launch, the first stage began spinning out of control as it descended back toward Kennedy Space Center along the Florida coast. There was a problem with one of the grid fins that are used to stabilize the first stage during its return to Earth through the thickening atmosphere.

"Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea," SpaceX founder and lead designer Elon Musk tweeted shortly after the rocket landed. "Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched." Later, in response to a question about redundancy of this system, Musk added, "Pump is single string. Some landing systems are not redundant, as landing is considered ground safety critical, but not mission critical. Given this event, we will likely add a backup pump & lines."

Video of relatively gentle splashdown here:

-EDIT-
Another angle:
 
Nasa's Voyager 2 probe 'leaves the Solar System'
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Image copyrightNASA/JPL


The Voyager 2 probe, which left Earth in 1977, has become the second human-made object to leave our Solar System.

It was launched 16 days before its twin craft, Voyager 1, but that probe's faster trajectory meant that it was in "the space between the stars" six years before Voyager 2.

The news was revealed at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in Washington.
 
NASA names the date for the first commercial crew demo flight
But will there be any 'nauts left on the ISS after AI bot CIMON has finished with them?
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A resumption of crewed flights from US soil has inched closer after NASA named a date for SpaceX's Demo-1. But the latest Delta IV Heavy remains firmly earthbound following the second and latest abort.

First SpaceX commercial crew demo now 17 January. Maybe
The date of the first commercial crew flight to the International Space Station (ISS) continues to skip around like a toddler needing the toilet.

After NASA Administrator James Bridenstine stomped down hard on hopes of the first SpaceX demo launch occurring on 7 January, leading many to look later in the spring for a launch date, NASA's Commercial Crew Program's mouthpiece said that, er, no. It'll be 17 January.
 
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Comet 46P/Wirtanen

The next perihelion passage of comet Wirtanen will be on 16 December 2018 when it will pass 0.078 AU (7,220,000 mi) from Earth. The icy space rock is expected to reach magnitude 3. This is the brightest prediction of known and future passes of this comet. This is also currently the brightest prediction for all comet passes in 2018. Comet 46P/Wirtanen will be among the 10 closest comets to approach Earth in modern times
 
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Basketball players :roll eyes:

NASA offers to show Stephen Curry proof after he raised doubts about moon landing

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry said he doubts whether humans ever landed on the moon. He made the comment during a podcast released Monday and it caught the attention of NASA, which offered to show him moon rocks at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and educate him about the mission.

During an appearance on the "Winging It" podcast with the NBA's Vince Carter, Kent Bazemore and host Annie Finberg, Curry and his Warriors teammate Andre Iguodala started talking about how there are some things no one can really know, like what sounds dinosaurs made.

Curry then wonders aloud, "We ever been to the moon?" And others swiftly answer, "Nope."

"They're going to come get us," Curry said. "I don't think so, either."
 
Comet 46P/Wirtanen

The next perihelion passage of comet Wirtanen will be on 16 December 2018 when it will pass 0.078 AU (7,220,000 mi) from Earth. The icy space rock is expected to reach magnitude 3. This is the brightest prediction of known and future passes of this comet. This is also currently the brightest prediction for all comet passes in 2018. Comet 46P/Wirtanen will be among the 10 closest comets to approach Earth in modern times
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Mars Express beams back images of ice-filled Korolev crater
Trapped layer of cold air keeps water frozen in 50-mile-wide impact crater
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A composite picture of the Korolev crater in the northern lowlands of Mars, made from images taken by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera overlaid on a digital terrain model. Photograph: Björn Schreiner/FU Berlin/DLR/ESA
The stunning Korolev crater in the northern lowlands of Mars is filled with ice all year round owing to a trapped layer of cold Martian air that keeps the water frozen.

The 50-mile-wide crater contains 530 cubic miles of water ice, as much as Great Bear Lake in northern Canada, and in the centre of the crater the ice is more than a mile thick.
 
Chinese rover pootles about... on the far side of the friggin' MOON

Keep rollin', rollin', rollin'
China continued stoking the fires of space fanbois desperate for an Apollo-style space race as its rover trundled off the Chang'e 4 lander and on to the far side of the Moon.

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Yutu 2 sets off (credit: China National Space Administration)

Chang'e 4 landed on 3 January following a sequence of mostly successful missions since 2007's Chang'e 1 lunar orbiter. It is also the second in the Chang'e series to land on the surface.
 
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