Space Stories: Earth Gives Extra Juice, Starship’s First Orbit, Starliner Returns, and the Missing Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Juice spacecraft with Jupiter in the background. (ESA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—European Space Agency: “Successful Earth Flyby Improves Juice’s Course to Jupiter”

The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) skimmed the very outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere on 28 September, using the gravity of our home planet to alter its route to Jupiter using very little fuel. The flyby deflected Juice by an angle of 20° compared to its pre-flyby path and increased its velocity by 3.5 km/s. In the four weeks before the flyby, spacecraft operators only had to give Juice one tiny nudge (out of six opportunities set aside) to put it on exactly the right approach trajectory to make the most of Earth’s gravity. They have been tracking the spacecraft extra carefully since 17 August, and will continue to do so until 10 October.

—Fox Business News: “SpaceX Launches Starship Into Orbit for First Time Ever But Cuts Mission Short“

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket blasted off from Texas Monday morning on its most ambitious test flight yet, aiming for a roughly 10-hour mission that would have sent the spacecraft around Earth six times, though the company ultimately decided to end the flight earlier than planned…The launch marks Starship’s 14th test flight and its first attempt to reach orbit, a major step beyond previous suborbital missions that ended with splashdowns about an hour after liftoff.

—CBS News: “NASA Plans Unpiloted Starliner Test Flight After Astronauts Got Stuck at Space Station in 2024“

NASA is working with Boeing to launch an unpiloted Starliner capsule in the December-to-January time frame to test upgrades and improvements ordered in the wake of a 2024 mission that suffered multiple propulsion system failures, stranding two astronauts on the space station for more than nine months. If the unpiloted test flight goes well, NASA and Boeing hope to launch a piloted Starliner flight in the mid-2028 time frame, officials said Monday, incorporating redesigned propulsion system valves, more robust subsystems and other modifications expected to prevent the sort of failures that occurred in 2024. Veteran astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg will command the mission.

—Sky & Telescope: “Did Venus Swallow Its Moon?“

It’s a question that has perplexed planetary astronomers for decades: Why does Venus — so similar in size to Earth and not all that far from Earth’s orbit — have no moon, while our planet has such a relatively large one? Earth’s Moon likely formed after a massive collision early in solar system history. But according to calculations, Venus should have been even more likely than Earth to have experienced such a catastrophic crash during its formative years. Yet today it has no moon at all. Now, a series of simulations published in the September 20th Astrophysical Journal, have demonstrated that Venus might once have had a moon — but the planet’s relative proximity to the Sun and its massive atmosphere both created conditions under which no moon could have survived. If there ever was a moon, it would have disintegrated and fallen back to the surface long ago.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Space Stories: Russian Supplies Arrive at ISS, Youngest Exoplanet Detected, and Greater European Flexibility in Space

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Sections of the International Space Station. (Russianspaceweb.com)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Spaceflight Now: “Russian Progress cargo ship arrives at International Space Station”

An unpiloted Russian Progress cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station Saturday carrying supplies and equipment for the orbiting outpost. The Progress M-25 docked at the space-facing port of Russia’s Poisk module at 9:44 a.m. EDT (1344 UTC). It circled the station before making its final approach using the automated Kurs rendezvous system. Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina were standing by to take manual control of the approach using remote controls, but everything went smoothly as the craft closed in, 260 miles above the Black Sea. A series of hooks inside the docking mechanism were driven closed to complete the docking operation.

—Science Daily: “Astronomers Just Found the Youngest Known Planet Ever“

Astronomers have confirmed the youngest known planet yet, a world less than 1 million years old that is still surrounded by the gas and dust from which it formed. The planet, called Elias 2-24 b, was identified using observations preserved in NASA-funded archives. It is still orbiting within its young star’s dusty disk, giving scientists a rare opportunity to study planet formation while it is still happening.

—Radio France Internationale: “Europe Weighs the Cost of Sending Its Own Astronauts into Space“

French President Emmanuel Macron wants Europe to develop its own way of sending astronauts into space within a decade. Europe already builds rockets and satellites and sends astronauts to the International Space Station – but it still relies on American spacecraft to get them there. As the global space sector expands, the question is whether Europe should invest in closing that gap, and what it would take to do so.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Space Quote: Yanks Yank Venus Support from Europeans

Posted on by onespaceman2000

“At the moment, we are finalizing our agreement with NASA, but it is looking like they are not able to provide the radar…So that is why we are going full steam ahead with the European solution.”

–Statement by Anne Grete Straume-Lindner, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) project scientist for the Venus mission called Envision, regarding expected cuts in NASA support for the planned Venus mapping mission. Proposed NASA cuts may also impact other ESA missions, including the New Athena observatory, which would take over for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (also continually on the chopping block) and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) observatory designed to study gravitational waves.

Pic of the Week: A Halloween Preview – N44

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Nebula LHA 120-N44, or N44, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA/Hubble, D. Gouliermis)

Talk about eerie. This week’s image is from the NASA/European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hubble Space telescope. The ghostly image shows nebula LHA 120-N44, or N44, which is about 160,000 light-years away. It is within the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits our galaxy.

Here is more from NASA describing what you are seeing:

N44 is dominated by two features: a vast central void and a shell of dense, dusty gas. The central void is a ‘superbubble’ spanning roughly 210 by 140 light-years across. The glittering stars at the center of the void are responsible for its creation; through their powerful stellar winds and explosive supernovae, these stars expelled much of the gas from which they were born.

When the stars of N44’s central star cluster swept away this gas, the expelled gas compressed and formed a shell around the superbubble. New stars are forming in this compressed gas shell, making N44 an interesting target for astronomers who are using the nebula to study how stars form in this environment. Their goal is to understand how long it takes from the collapse of cold gas clouds into dense knots to the moment nuclear fusion ignites in the heart of a newborn star.

Pic of the Week: The Heart of Our Galaxy

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Image of our Milky Way galaxy’s center in visible light taken on March 23, 2025 by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay))

This week’s image is from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope. It shows the center of the Milky Way Galaxy with its more than 60 million stars.

Here is more from ESA pertaining to what you are seeing above:

The galactic bulge – the central region of our galaxy – is a vast, tightly packed structure filled mainly with old, cooler stars, giving it its characteristic yellow colour. Seen from some 26 000 light-years away, Euclid observes the galaxy’s centre through a complex foreground of material along its line of sight.

This ultra-wide view towards the bulge reveals not only stars, but also seemingly empty dark regions. The dark patches are not devoid of stars: they mark dense, dust-rich molecular clouds that absorb and scatter light from the bulge behind them. As Euclid looks through two of the Milky Way’s spiral arms, it also encounters regions of active star formation, traced by newly formed, massive blue stars. Their intense ultraviolet radiation ionises surrounding hydrogen gas, producing the faint red glow clearly visible in one of the cutouts.

The image below provides more context about the location of the image shown above. Go to this link for more information on the Euclid’s survey.

Image (Credit): Location of Euclid’s galactic bulge survey. (ESA)