Category Astronomy/Space

The Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket lifts off from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Monday, July 18, 2016. The Falcon 9 is headed to the International Space Station with 5,000 pounds of supplies. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

As an extra treat, SpaceX brought its leftover first-stage booster back to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a vertical touchdown—only the second such land landing for an orbital mission and the ultimate in recycling. Twin sonic booms rocked the moonlit night, old shuttle landing-style. The cosmic double-header got underway as the unmanned Falcon rocket streaked upward through the middle-of-the-night darkness, carrying 5,000 lb of food, experiments and equipment for the International Space Station...

CRS-9 (Commercial Resupply Services) mission is scheduled to liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 12:45 EDT on Monday. The uncrewed Dragon spacecraft is loaded with about 5,000 lbs of experiments and supplies including a 1,020 lb international docking adapter, which will allow commercial spacecraft to dock to the station when transporting astronauts in the near future as part of our Commercial Crew Program.Experiments launching to the station range from research into the effects of microgravity on the human body, to regulating temperature on spacecraft.

DNA testing aboard the space station typically requires collecting samples and sending them back to Earth to be analyzed...

Part of the ensemble of dishes forming South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope is seen in Carnarvon on July 16, 2016

Even operating at a quarter of its eventual capacity, South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope showed off its phenomenal power Saturday, revealing 1,300 galaxies in a tiny corner of the universe where only 70 were known before. MeerKAT’s full contingent of 64 receptors will be integrated next year into a multi-nation Square Kilometre Array (SKA) which is is set to become the world’s most powerful radio telescope.

Fernando Camilo said at the site of the dishes near the small town of Carnarvon, 600 km north of Cape Town, “This telescope as is today, only one quarter of the way down (to its full contingent) is”...

Starburst galaxy named MCG+07-33-027. The bright object to the right of the galaxy is a foreground star in our own galaxy.

This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and shows a starburst galaxy named MCG+07-33-027. This galaxy lies some 300 million light-years away from us, and is currently experiencing an extraordinarily high rate of star formation – a starburst. Normal galaxies produce only a couple of new stars per year, but starburst galaxies can produce a 100X more than that. As MCG+07-33-027 is seen face-on, the galaxy’s spiral arms and the bright star-forming regions within them are clearly visible and easy for astronomers to study.

In order to form newborn stars, the parent galaxy has to hold a large reservoir of gas, which is slowly depleted to spawn sta...