Space Stories: Japanese Spacecraft Leaves for Mars, Extreme Exoplanet Weather, and Ghostly Green Stars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: JAXA

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Sky & Telescope: “Japan Launches the Martian Moons Exploration Mission“

A two-stage, H3-24L rocket lit up the predawn skies over Tanegashima Space Center on the southern tip of Japan early on Tuesday, October 20th (3:41 p.m. EDT on October 19th), carrying a mission headed for the Red Planet: the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Martian Moons eXploration (MMX)…The mission is complex, set to explore the moons of Mars with a series of flybys past Deimos before rendezvous with and landing on Phobos. If all goes well, MMX will collect and return a sample from Phobos and return it to Earth. The agency’s goal is nothing less than to understand the potato-shaped moons’ origins.

—SciTechDaily: “NASA’s James Webb Telescope Reveals a Giant Alien Planet That’s Not Quite Round“

One side of WASP-17b’s atmosphere extends farther into space than the other, giving this intensely hot giant planet an uneven outline. Astronomers have now mapped that distortion with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), finding a pattern consistent with predictions of how heat and powerful winds shape a world with permanent day and night sides. WASP-17b is a hot Jupiter, a giant planet that orbits close to its star, about 1,300 light-years from Earth. The study, co-led by Cornell University in the United States and the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, was published in Nature Astronomy. It marks the first application of a method called transmission strings, developed at Bristol by astrophysicists Dr. David Grant and Dr. Hannah Wakeford.

—ScienceDaily: “Astronomers Discover a Ghostly Green Star Unlike Any Known Before“

Astronomers at the University of Warwick have discovered that white dwarf stars can display a surprising variety of colors, including green, pink, purple, yellow, and cyan. Among their findings is the first known star that would appear genuinely green to the human eye. For most stars, color is closely tied to temperature. Cooler stars appear orange, stars like our Sun look white, and the hottest stars shine pale blue. The relationship is similar to heating a piece of iron, which changes from red to orange and eventually white as its temperature rises.

Space Stories: Cargo Heading to ISS, Martian Nuclear Reactors, and a Cannibal Star

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—NASA: “NASA’s SpaceX 35th Commercial Resupply Mission Overview”

NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than Tuesday, Oct. 13 to launch scientific investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. Loaded with more than 6,300 pounds of supplies, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will lift off aboard the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Following its arrival to the orbital complex, Dragon will autonomously dock to the space-facing port of the space station’s Harmony module.

—Ideastream: “NASA Glenn is Designing the First U.S. Nuclear Reactor in Space in More Than 60 Years“

Scientists at NASA Glenn in Cleveland are rushing to meet a two-year deadline for launching a small nuclear reactor to power the next Mars mission — the first time the U.S. has launched a nuclear reactor into space in 60 years. The mission to send three mini-helicopters to Mars will use a new nuclear electric propulsion system. NASA Glenn is designing both the reactor and the propulsion system. NASA Glenn nuclear engineer Lindsay Kaldon feels confident both will be ready in time for a federally imposed deadline of 2028. “It’s accomplishable — if that’s a word,” Kaldon said. “It’s something we can do.”

—Science Daily: “MIT Astronomers Catch a Star in a Feast That Could Last Billions of Years“

Astronomers have discovered an unusual star system about 300 light-years from Earth where a small star is gradually consuming a nearby brown dwarf. Instead of swallowing its companion in one dramatic event, the star is steadily pulling material from it, creating a cosmic feeding process that could continue for billions of years…The system, designated ZTF J0440+2325, lies within our Milky Way galaxy approximately 300 light-years away. It is the first observed example of a low-mass star steadily drawing material from another low-mass object.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Crew-13 Safely Arrives at the ISS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The SpaceX Dragon, with its nose cone open and carrying four Crew-13 members, approaches the International Space Station for a docking yesterday evening. (NASA)

A new ISS crew was launched from Cape Canaveral at 11:10 a.m. EDT Thursday, October 1, 2026 . Crew-13, consisting of NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. The ride to the space station was scheduled to be about 8 hours. The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the crew safely docked with the ISS at 9:19 p.m. EDT.

The new crew will replace Crew‑12 consisting of NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. These four crew members will be returning to Earth as soon as Monday, weather permitting.

Image (Credit): From left to right, Crew-13 NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. (NASA)

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 Quote: Better Late Than Never

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Nancy Grace Roman with a scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA)

“I just want to thank everybody, and congratulate you. Boy, it looked beautiful on television…Jared is doing a fantastic job, you are doing a fantastic job, and I’m supplying you all that money.”

–Statement by President Trump to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman after the successful launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Of course, this is the same president that submitted multiple budgets over the years that would have eliminated this same telescope as well as many other NASA programs. In fact, only the bipartisan efforts of Congress made the launch possible by “supplying…all that money.” Given the status of other White House efforts in Iran and elsewhere, it makes sense the president is looking for a win. Let’s hope NASA has plenty more wins coming up to keep the budget ax far away.