The Stellar Survey for October 26 - November 3

• The epic “chopstick” catch from earlier this month almost didn’t happen. | Behold, the nail-biting physics of rocket launches and landings!

• Another round of images from the JWST has uncovered what may be the oldest galaxy ever seen. | It might not look like much, but to astronomers, it’s a heckuva lot.

• Look up! Here’s what’s on offer in the sky (FOR FREE!) in November 2024. | Wonder, wonder, wonder—it’s all around us, everywhere we look.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. Originally retrieved from Space.com.

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• Axion—not just the name of a forgotten laundry detergent! | Meet a new candidate for the elusive dark matter particle—one that just might change the way we understand space.

• Can Boeing recover from its Starliner problems? | Money: it’s a problem everywhere.

• Here’s a last little bit of Halloween flavour, for those for whom October is their favourite time of year. | Stare into the “blood-soaked” eyes of these two galaxies in this latest Hubble photo.

• The space race (of a sort) is back! | Will China return a sample of Mars to Earth before the US does? CUE THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES!

• Saltwater may explain these strange features on the asteroid Vesta. | Or maybe it’s residue from space whales. Who knows?

• A global inventory of air pollution from falling-back-to-earth satellites and space debris has released its figures from 2022. | Spoiler alert: it’s concerning.

• Could we really live on Mars in 20 years? Kelly and Zach Weinersmith say no. | Take that, Mr. Musk.

• An oldie but goodie: what the Prime Directive can teach us about exploring space. | “We should endeavour to be gentle explorers.” And how.

• Another oldie but goodie: scientists have discovered strange “cosmic threads” emanating from the Milky Way. | What unravels when we pull on that thread, I wonder?

• NASA’s new solar sail technology (which is SUPER cool—check this out), currently orbiting Earth, has a bent boom. Uh=oh! | But fear not! It’s still scrapping along.

• What’s the moon phase tonight? | GLAD YOU ASKED!

• Watch this video of comet ATLAS (not the comet we saw earlier in September—that one’s en route back out to the Oort Cloud!) burn up as it flies into the sun. | Still amazes me that we have technology to observe this stuff. Wild.

• And finally—Voyager 1 has phoned home—using an onboard communications system that hasn’t been used since 1981! | Meanwhile, my seven-year-old computer (which has more computing power than Voyager 1, FTR) is only a few years away from the point at which Apple will no longer issue updates for it. Go figure.

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