It’s official, the LEGO Group has unveiled their new International Space Station (21321) set, which comes packed with authentic details as part of its 10-year celebration of the Ideas program. This set is actually based on a concept from a LEGO fan, and contains 864 pieces, including the iconic space station itself, NASA space shuttle, three mini cargo spacecrafts, as well as two astronaut microfigures. Read more for a video, additional pictures and information.
NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin celebrated his 90th birthday on Monday, sharing the occasion with a Twitter message to his 1.5-million followers. He made history as 600-million people watched Apollo 11 crew mate Neil Armstrong become the first two humans to set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969. Read more for a video looking back at the historic mission and additional information.
SpaceX has successfully completed a test of the Crew Dragon abort system, one of the final milestones before a crewed test flight that could take place as soon as this spring. A Falcon 9 carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 10:30 a.m. EST Sunday morning, and 84-seconds later, the capsule ignited its eight SuperDraco thrusters, pulling the vehicle away from the rocket. Read more for two videos and additional information.
Photo credit: Enhanced image by Gerald Eichstädt and Sean Doran (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has captured an amazing photo of Jupiter’s dynamic surface, or to be more specific, a multitude of swirling clouds in the planet’s dynamic North North Temperate Belt with several bright-white “pop-up” clouds as well as an anticyclonic storm, known as a white oval. Two citizen scientists composited the photograph using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager, and an anticyclonic storm, known as a white oval, can also be seen in the image. Read more for more stunning scenes from JunoCam and additional information.
One character you probably wouldn’t expect to see aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is Snoopy, but NASA released a new video today showing just that. This footage was recorded aboard the Starliner’s first Orbital Flight Test (OFT), and despite the December mission not going as planned — a timer error caused the capsule to not dock with the International Space Station — it did successfully achieve a shortened, two-day flight that completed most of Boeing’s major goals. Read more for the video and additional information.
NASA’s planet-hunting TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has found many intriguing planets since it first began searching the sky in the summer of 2018, but a high school intern Wolf Cukier searching through its data contributed to its latest discovery. The planet, TOI 1338 b, orbiting two suns around 1,300 light-years away in the Pictor constellation, like Tatooine in the Star Wars films, is the first of its kind for the TESS mission. Read more for a video and additional information.
VRgineers introduced the latest generation of the XTAL professional VR headset, which incorporates 8K resolution with a set of new features, including readability optimized for powerful GPUs such as the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000. What sets this headset apart from the others is the AR mixed reality module, and improved lenses that give it a 180° field-of-view. NASA astronauts could make use of this technology for VR simulations. Read more for a video and additional information.
Photo credit: NASA
One sight you can never tire of is of Earth from above regardless of what year it may be. In this image captured by a NASA astronaut, we see stars glitter in the night sky above the Earth’s atmospheric glow, as the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above the Earth. The crew was just about to cross over the Caspian Sea when this image was snapped. Read more for a video and additional information.
Photo credit: Express
According to NASA, a VW Beetle-sized asteroid is hurtling towards Earth and is set to pass by on January 2, 2020. This space rock measures diameter 13 meters in diameter, and is officially called “2019 AE3”. Currently, it’s traversing our solar system at a speed of 8.2 kilometers per second (5MPS), and will be closest to Earth on January 2 at just 0.013 astronomical units away. Read more for a video and additional information.
NASA shared an image today that an International Space Station astronaut took of a full Moon rising over a frigid Hudson Bay in northern Canada. Looking north from the ISS, you can see Earth’s horizon gradually fade into the darkness of the polar night. This image wasn’t taken at dusk, as these small villages and towns along these shores in Manitoba Province receive just 6 to 7 hours of sunlight each day in December. Read more for a video and additional information.