1/ Thread: I'm pretty sure that my beat is not just space exploration, but also Space Feels. Want to feel oddly sad about Earth and the moon growing apart? Here you go:
I have captured
the asteroid
that was in
Earth's vicinity
and which
you were probably
saving
for deep space
Forgive me
it was nearby
so small
and so cute
Elon Musk has announced that Juneteenth is now considered a holiday at SpaceX and Tesla, but his followup suggests that it's not a paid holiday, and employees must use their own PTO.
Trump now painting a misleading picture of NASA history. "The last administration presided over the closing of the space shuttle." Yes, the last space shuttle flew under Obama, but the program was canceled under George W. Bush.
During a telecon, I asked Jim Bridenstine about Elon Musk's recent opinions on COVID-19. A voice on the line said, "wrong press conference. Move on." I'm told it was Elon.
NASA just picked Starship to contribute important technology to the agency's moon return. This is relevant.
The SpaceX astronaut capsules so far have been called Endeavour, Resilience, and Endurance. A lovely start. Looking forward to future launches of Anxiety, Depression, and Lethargy.
Okay, I have fully processed the images JWST showed us today, and I have decided: The Carina Nebula image is maybe the coolest space picture I've ever seen.
The phosphine in Venus's atmosphere *could* indicate life, or it could mean a chemical process we haven’t seen before. Scientists have more work to do to.
But I hope today's exciting news helps you forget about The Bad Stuff for a minute or two.
Ladies, if he:
-doesn't call home right away
-shows zero emotion
-moves millions of miles away from you
-measures seismic activity
-drills 16 feet into the ground
He's not your man. He's a Mars lander.
While Bezos is popping champagne, Shatner is tearing up, trying to get words out. "Everybody in the world needs to do this," he says. "Everybody in the world needs to see."
As I was reading the Apollo 11 transcripts, I realized the mission kind of sounded like.. a road trip?
The craziest one ever, of course, but—they drank too much coffee, didn't agree on the music, and nearly ran out of gas
The head of Russia's space agency: "If [the U.S.] blocks cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled descent out of orbit and a fall on the United States or"—continued in his next tweet—"Europe?"
"The ISS doesn't fly over Russia, so all the risks are yours."
мусором, коим ваши талантливые бизнесмены загадили околоземную орбиту, производится исключительно двигателями российских грузовых кораблей "Прогресс МС". Если заблокируете сотрудничество с нами, кто спасёт МКС от неуправляемого схода с орбиты и падения на территорию США или...
Marina Koren is the recipient of the 2023 Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award for distinguished popular writing on planetary sciences for the article “The Existential Wonder of Space” published in The Atlantic.
SpaceX's first private crew—Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux, and Chris Sembroski—is in orbit. They're going to have a few amazing days in space.
I looked through a telescope for the first time last night. I could see Saturn’s rings, and Jupiter’s bands, and crater walls jutting out of the surface of the moon. Truly amazing!
"Why would anyone want to go to low-Earth orbit?"
My latest piece explores why Elon Musk hasn't gone to space yet. Of course, only he knows the answer to that, but I did my best:
I wrote about the discovery of what could be the most distant galaxy we've ever seen. You're seeing this cosmic tomato as it was just 300 million years after the Big Bang.
Important caveats in here, but also lots of wonder about what comes next:
"Virtually everywhere in the city 'ended up with a covering of a rather thick, granular, sand grain that just landed on everything.'"
@livia_ar
reports on the aftermath of the explosive Starship test in South Texas
I asked Gerard Bruno, Arianespace’s VP of French Guiana operations, how the rocket is secured. Turns out it’s not! Like, at all. The rocket’s own massive weight holds it down, and it’s heavy enough that it won’t tip over. Everyone on site seems completely fine about this
At the
#HumansToMars
summit today, retired NASA astronaut Leland Melvin says he wasn't scared to go to space. He was more scared, as a Black man, about being stopped by a police officer.
Mark Kelly is being sworn into the Senate today. Here's my piece on astronauts turned politicians, and here's a great quote from an astronaut who didn't run for office (but maybe should have)
NASA presser happening now. No return date given, still more work to do to make sure the astronauts can get home on Boeing's Starliner.
Feels like they're starting to say the quiet part out loud: If it was safe to return Starliner at any point in the last six weeks, Butch and
I didn’t have “spend Christmas Eve dinner with a bunch of scientists and engineers and journalists in French Guiana while the restaurant plays Mariah Carey” on my bingo card for 2021, but I’m so very happy. Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday and a successful telescope launch.
A U.S. congresswoman who grew up drinking from different water fountains than the white people in her town was pepper-sprayed by police in the street yesterday:
See this little blue truck? It’s going to haul the rocket to the launchpad, traveling at a maximum speed of 4 kilometers per hour (2.5 miles per hour). Yup, the whole thing!
SpaceX just experienced the biggest explosion yet at its Texas site, where it's testing prototypes for a Mars rocket.
A resident who lives nearby—just 2 miles away—said it felt like an earthquake. This is what happens when Elon Musk is your neighbor:
"We've nailed it." NASA and Northrop Grumman officials doing a presser now about the successful deployment of JWST's sunshield, which needed to work for all the rest of it to work
A reminder that orbital space travel is still risky, and a series of successful missions don't guarantee the next one. As one retired NASA astronaut put it to me: “The shuttle was pretty routine until it blew up.”
What?! "In 2017, Starliner had an accident during a ground test that forced the president of a different subcontractor to have his leg medically amputated." From
@joroulette
:
Good morning from Kourou. This morning we’re watching JWST and its rocket roll out to the launchpad. On the way there now, and the colors of the jungle here are just the richest green
My cynical take is that Jeff Bezos bringing Wally Funk to space with him is a brilliant PR stunt for Blue Origin.
My not-so-cynical take is that this is a real gift, to a real person, who seems lovely and absolutely deserves it.
Just to really drive this home: The NASA administrator felt compelled to ask SpaceX's president whether Elon's Twitter is going to distract SpaceX from its work for NASA, which includes landing their astronauts on the moon later in this decade.
After the briefing, Administrator Bill Nelson told me that he spoke with SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell last weekend. He asked if Twitter/Musk was going to be a distraction to SpaceX and its commitments to NASA. "She said to me in no uncertain terms, 'I assure you it is not.'"
Image
#1
: The deep field view NASA revealed yesterday. "There's just a sharpness and a clarity we've never had," Jane Rigby, JWST's operations project scientist, says. Looking more than 13 billion years back in time here.
Couldn't help writing a little teaser ahead of JWST's image release on Tuesday.
Astronomers around the world are—how do I put this very seriously and scientifically?—absolutely psyched about this.
"Trump has lied repeatedly and brazenly, practically commanding his supporters to mount an uprising, and now they have done as he asked." from
@GrahamDavidA
Trying very hard to pay attention to this NASA presser about the final months of a dust-covered Mars lander but can't stop thinking about this cake they made
Me trying to explain to my poor editor that the Artemis 2 crew will not enter lunar orbit but that they will circle the moon but they're on a free-return trajectory but they will be in the lunar gravitational sphere of influence
Hubble launched in 1990, the year I was born, and I can’t remember when I first heard about it or saw one of its images. It was always just *there*. A constant source of wonder, a comfort.
Someday, our littlest ones might feel the same way about JWST.
My story about a small South Texas community and its loud Mars-spaceship-building neighbor is going to be in this year's Best American Science and Nature Writing. I'm so honored and delighted!
A sad day in astronomy. Arecibo has suffered still more damage—its massive instrument platform has collapsed onto its dish, according to the NSF and people in Puerto Rico.
They knew it was coming. And this time, there’s no coming back from it:
Good morning from Kourou again, where it’s nice and rainy. Today we’re spending time in the Guiana Space Center’s control room, which is called Jupiter, and going out to the launchpad.
Merry Christmas Eve!
Good morning. I’m on my way to NASA’s Goddard center in Maryland, where officials will release more images from JWST today.
Yesterday’s dazzling snapshot is only the beginning
.
@brianschatz
: "Is it fair to call this an evolution of your views?"
@JimBridenstine
: "Yes."
This is big. Trump's NASA chief just said he's changed his mind on climate change.
Background here:
"I decided to at least learn their names." This is how it starts.
@lenikacruz
captures perfectly the whirlwind obsession that follows watching just one BTS video:
Unlike Hubble, Webb isn't designed to be fixed by astronauts. But it can be refueled robotically. Zurbuchen says that "once this telescope is deployed, I'm going to put all the effort towards developing that technology, and so within the 10-year lifespan, we can go refuel it."
I spend a lot of time looking at pictures of planets and galaxies and star clusters, but this photo, of a president and her government officials in masks, might be the most stunning thing I've seen in a while
A member of the DART mission told me that she loves doing planetary science, which isn't usually an applied science.
But this? Slamming into an asteroid in the name of planetary defense? That's about as applied as it gets:
This is a rock, not a slice of cheesecake.
Red agate and White Opal with Botryodial Chalcedony
This specimen from Central Nevada
Credit: Chelsea Thompson
#Geology
#GeologyPage
#Nature
"A year ago, an influencer could post a shot with manicured hands on a coffee cup and rake in the likes—but now, people will unfollow."
@TaylorLorenz
's latest is so good
We're also hearing NASA being more open about using SpaceX to bring them home, if it really came to that. And they should feel comfortable saying that! That level of transparency might look bad for Boeing, but it's the whole point: the agency wanted two providers for this very