Space

On Aug. 28, 1993, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid Ida while on its way to Jupiter. Galileo was the first spacecraft to fly by an asteroid in the asteroid belt. Ida was actually the second one it visited after another flyby of the asteroid Gaspra in 1991. Galileo whizzed by asteroid Ida going almost 28,000 mph and came within 1,500 miles of the asteroid’s surface. During…

The hours are counting down to the launch of NASA’s newest flagship orbital observatory. The spacecraft recently got its last glimpse of terrestrial light before being encapsulated in its rocket’s protective payload fairing last week and is imminently bound for liftoff. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA’s next-generation research satellite, and it’s currently…

NASA is just days away from launching its next major space observatory. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to lift off Aug. 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, heading for a spot roughly 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth. Unlike the James Webb Space Telescope, which trades panoramic views for a narrow field of view to peer…

Today (Aug. 25), the sun unleashed a powerful M6.9 solar flare from a restless Earth-facing sunspot, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space — and Earth could potentially be in the firing line. The M6.98 solar flare erupted from the active sunspot region 4513 and peaked at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT), according to SpaceWeatherLive. 4513 has been particularly active over the last 24 hours…