Space

The debut mission of Northrop Grumman’s new jumbo cargo spacecraft is going well. The Virginia-based company’s first “Cygnus XL” freighter arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) early this morning (Sept. 18), after a one-day delay. The key moment came at 7:24 a.m. EDT (1124 GMT), when NASA astronaut Jonny Kim used the orbiting lab’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to…

Let’s get this out of the way first: The Mokoqi Star Projector Night Light is in no way a star projector aimed at adults. This is, first and foremost, a night light designed for children. It doesn’t offer realistic projections. Instead, it projects colorful cartoon stars and moons onto the ceiling. They’re eye-catching enough, but are a far cry from anything that resembles the…

Objects such as ‘Oumuamua, Borisov and recently 3I/ATLAS have opened our eyes to the reality that outsiders regularly visit our solar system — and we’re about to start spotting a whole lot more of them. 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object currently zipping through the solar system, is capturing the attention of astronomers, the public and even most of our deep space assets. Its…

Sometimes an unusual celestial sight will take place at a rather ungodly hour. As a budding young amateur astronomer living in the Bronx, I remember the bemused look on my mother’s face when I told her I was setting my alarm for 4 a.m. so that I could get a look at a meteor shower or lunar eclipse. “How come these things don’t happen at a more convenient hour?” she would…