Space

A new “immersive visualization” will allow users to experience the plunging into a black hole and falling beyond the “point of no return” within the phenomenon, the NASAsaid in a news release. The visualization, produced on a NASA supercomputer, allows users to experience flight towards a supermassive black hole. The simulation then orbits the black hole and crosses the event …

An Atlas 5 rocket carrying astronauts for the first time was fueled for blastoff Monday night to boost Boeing’s long-delayed Starliner crew ferry ship into orbit for its first piloted test flight. But trouble with a valve in the rocket’s upper stage forced mission managers to order a scrub just two hours before takeoff. It was a frustrating disappointment for …

Years behind schedule and more than a billion dollars over budget, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is finally poised for its first piloted launch Monday, a critical test flight carrying two veteran astronauts to the International Space Station and in so doing, demonstrate an alternative to SpaceX’s already operational Crew Dragon. While SpaceX has launched 50 astronauts, cosmonauts and civilians into orbit …

Two veteran astronauts flew to the Kennedy Space Center Thursday afternoon to prepare for the first piloted launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, a long-awaited flight running years behind schedule after two uncrewed test flights and extensive work to resolve a variety of technical problems. Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams, two of NASA’s most seasoned astronauts with four previous …

Three Chinese taikonauts blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Thursday and set off after the the Tiangong space station to replace three long-duration crew members who are closing out a six-month stay in space. With veteran Ye Guangfu, 43, at the controls of the Shenzhou 18 spacecraft, flanked by rookies Li Cong, 34, and …

A unique phenomenon that could be mistaken for spiders scuttling across the planet’s surface has been spotted on Mars, according to the European Space Agency. The ESA said in a news release that one of its Mars Express orbiter captured images of the “spiders,” which are really just small, dark-colored features that begin to be formed when sunshine falls on …

The most distant spacecraft from Earth has resumed sending data after a five-month gap, NASA said Monday. NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched in 1977, about two weeks after the launch of its twin, Voyager 2. The spacecraft has spent over 45 years studying the outer solar system and has made flybys of Jupiter and Saturn and traveled more than …

Astronomers have discovered powerful “twisted” magnetic fields spiraling around the black hole that sits at the center of the Milky Way, the European Southern Observatory said Wednesday. A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) for the first time showed in polarized light a ring of magnetic fields surrounding the Sagittarius A* black hole. The fields are similar to …

Two days after launch, a Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship caught up with the International Space Station Monday and moved in for a picture-perfect docking, bringing two short-duration crew members and a NASA astronaut starting a six-month stay in orbit. With Soyuz MS-25/71S commander Oleg Novitskiy, Belarus guest flier Marina Vasilevskaya and NASA veteran Tracy Dyson monitoring the automated approach, …

The planet was just slammed with what government officials dubbed a severe geomagnetic storm, the second-highest level of NOAA’s rating system. The event brought “a major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field” that may have impacted infrastructure and made the northern lights visible farther than usual, officials said. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch on Saturday, saying …