Space

Heads up stargazers! The moon will shine close to the bright star Antares at sunset on Sept. 27, while some lucky viewers — and plenty of penguins — will witness the lunar disk pass directly in front of the red supergiant, hiding it from view. Look 15 degrees above the southwestern horizon at sunset on Sept. 27 to find the waxing crescent moon. Antares will glow less than 3 degrees to its…

A vast river of neutral hydrogen bridges two galaxies that are beginning to enter the monstrous Virgo Cluster, and this structure is helping astronomers better understand our Milky Way’s relationship with the nearby Magellanic Clouds. The two galaxies, named NGC 4532 and DDO 137, are in fact falling into the Virgo Cluster at 547 miles (880 kilometers) per second, and in doing so are plowing…

One of NASA’s newly announced astronaut candidates already has a spaceflight under her belt. On Monday (Sept. 22), the space agency announced the 10 members of its newest astronaut class — five men and five women who will train for potential missions to commercial space stations in Earth orbit, at the moon and (perhaps) on Mars. One of the 10 is Anna Menon, who already has extensive experience…