NASA said to be on the lookout this weekend for possible fireballs from the Taurid meteor shower, which is expected to peak Saturday night.

The meteor shower is visible whenever the constellation Taurus is high in the sky. But there is an indication that this year’s peak could be even more spectacular. The constellation is generally high up in the night sky shortly after midnight this time of year.

“The annual Taurid meteor shower is going on right now, and we are seeing steady activity in our meteor cameras,” said Bill Cooke, lead for the NASA Meteoroid Environments Office. “Individuals should not be surprised if they see a bright meteor or fireball over the next few nights.”

Tuesday morning, astronomers captured one of these bright fireballs visible throughout the southern U.S.

“The bolide or fireball appeared some 44 miles above a point midway between the towns of Stanton and Mason, Tennessee and moved slightly north of east at a speed 3 times faster than that of the International Space Station,” Cooke said. “The fireball finally terminated above the town of Pinson, which is southeast of Jackson, Tenn.”

Some years, the meteor shower only produces a handful of visible meteors; some years, more can be visible.

NASA said the fireballs are created when the Earth runs into a group of pebble-sized fragments from a comet that then burn up in the atmosphere.

Astronomers say they've found another black hole and it's now the closest known space entity of its kind to planet Earth.

Scientist announced on Friday that the black hole is ten times the mass of Earth's sun and three times closer to Earth than the previously closest known black hole.

It is located in space just 1,600 light-years away from our planet.

It was found as astronomers were watching the motion of a companion star to the black hole which orbits it at around the same distance that our sun orbits Earth.

As Science News reported, it was found by astronomers using the European Space Agency's Gaia craft, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

A team from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center working with the International Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, confirming their discovery. The data was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

It is unclear how it has formed in the Milky Way. Scientists have labeled it Gaia BH1, and it is situated in the serpent-bearer constellation Ophiuchus.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

NASA's new moon rocket blasted off on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard early Wednesday, bringing the U.S. a big step closer to putting astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago.

If all goes well during the three-week, make-or-break shakedown flight, the rocket will propel an empty crew capsule into a wide orbit around the moon, and then the capsule will return to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific in December.

After years of delays and billions in cost overruns, the Space Launch System rocket thundered skyward, rising from Kennedy Space Center on 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust and hitting 100 mph (160 kph) within seconds. The Orion capsule was perched on top, ready to bust out of Earth orbit toward the moon not quite two hours into the flight.

The moonshot follows nearly three months of vexing fuel leaks that kept the rocket bouncing between its hangar and the pad. Forced back indoors by Hurricane Ian at the end of September, the rocket stood its ground outside as Nicole swept through last week with gusts of more than 80 mph (130 kph). Although the wind peeled away a 10-foot (3-meter) strip of caulking high up near the capsule, managers gave the green light for the launch.

NASA expected 15,000 to jam the launch site, with thousands more lining the beaches and roads outside the gates, to witness NASA's long-awaited sequel to Project Apollo, when 12 astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 and 1972. Crowds also gathered outside NASA centers in Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, to watch the spectacle on giant screens.

"For the Artemis generation, this is for you," launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said shortly before liftoff, referring to young people who were not alive for Apollo.

The liftoff marked the start of NASA's Artemis lunar-exploration program, named after Apollo's mythological twin sister. The space agency is aiming to send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight, in 2024, and land humans there as early as 2025.

The 322-foot (98-meter) SLS is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA, with more thrust than either the space shuttle or the mighty Saturn V that carried men to the moon. A series of hydrogen fuel leaks plagued the summertime launch attempts as well as countdown tests. A fresh leak erupted at a new location during Tuesday night's fueling, but an emergency team managed to tighten the faulty valve on the pad. Then a U.S. Space Force radar station went down, resulting in another scramble, this time to replace an ethernet switch.

Orion should reach the moon by Monday, more than 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) from Earth. After coming within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of the moon, the capsule will enter a far-flung orbit stretching about 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) beyond.

The $4.1 billion test flight is set to last 25 days, roughly the same as when crews will be aboard. The space agency intends to push the spacecraft to its limits and uncover any problems before astronauts strap in. The mannequins — NASA calls them moonequins — are fitted with sensors to measure such things as vibration, acceleration and cosmic radiation.

"There's a fair amount of risk with this particular initial flight test," said mission manager Mike Sarafin.

The rocket was supposed to have made its dry run by 2017. Government watchdogs estimate NASA will have spent $93 billion on the project by 2025.

Ultimately, NASA hopes to establish a base on the moon and send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s.

But many hurdles still need to be cleared. The Orion capsule will take astronauts only to lunar orbit, not the surface.

NASA has hired Elon Musk's SpaceX to develop Starship, the 21st-century answer to Apollo's lunar lander. Starship will carry astronauts back and forth between Orion and the lunar surface, at least on the first trip in 2025. The plan is to station Starship and eventually other companies' landers in orbit around the moon, ready for use whenever new Orion crews pull up.

Reprising an argument that was made during the 1960s, Duke University historian Alex Roland questions the value of human spaceflight, saying robots and remote-controlled spacecraft could get the job done more cheaply, efficiently and safely.

"In all these years, no evidence has emerged to justify the investment we have made in human spaceflight — save the prestige involved in this conspicuous consumption," he said.

NASA is waiting until this test flight is over before introducing the astronauts who will be on the next one and those who will follow in the bootsteps of Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Most of NASA's corps of 42 active astronauts and 10 trainees were not even born yet when Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the era, 50 years ago next month.

"We are jumping out of our spacesuits with excitement," astronaut Christina Koch, 43, said just hours before liftoff. After a nearly yearlong space station mission and all-female spacewalk, she's on NASA's short list for a lunar flight.

Red light therapy has been rising in popularity, but with a lot of posts about it on social media, it's hard to know if what's being promised is backed by science. Physician and board-certified anesthesiologist Dr. Azza Halim, who works at the Sanctuary Medical Center, says red light therapy isn't new.

"Because of social media, TikTok, more people are trying it, getting on that bandwagon," Dr. Halim said.

An article published on NASA explains research funded by NASA used red light therapy to grow plants in space in the mid-1990s. Pretty soon, NASA scientists working under the lights discovered that abrasions on their hands were healing faster than normal. Dr. Rich Joseph is a chief medical officer for Restore Hyper Wellness, which offers red light therapy at more than 125 locations nationwide.

"Red light, in particular, we're learning, might have more advantageous properties for healing because of its ability to penetrate the skin because of its longer wavelengths," Dr. Joseph said.

Both he and Dr. Halim say there are a few medical studies regarding red light therapy.

One study suggests an increase in collagen density. Collagen provides structure and strength to your skin, muscles, bones and connective tissues. Another study suggests there are potential psychological benefits for people facing depression and anxiety.

However, Dr. Joseph cautions someone facing mental health issues should also seek out treatment from mainstream medicine like the use of anti-depressants. Dr. Halim says red light therapy should always be considered as an addition to your wellness practice.

"It needs to be used in conjunction with other therapies because there's been controversy with people trying to upsell red light therapy," Dr. Halim said.

Dr. Joseph says more clinical trials are needed to confirm its effectiveness as a treatment. What he can confirm is that red light therapy is safe because it won't cause skin damage like UV rays from the sun. Before you decide to spend your money on this growing trend, Dr. Halim suggests you talk with your physician to see what makes the most sense for you.

 

When NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft slammed into the tiny asteroid Dimorphos, the impact certainly left a mark.

The intentional collision, which took place Sept. 26 as a test of asteroid deflection technology, displaced more than 2 million pounds of rocks and dust from the asteroid into space. Scientists estimate it was enough material to fill about six or seven rail cars.

The insights gained from the collision are helping scientists learn how this planetary defense technique might be used in the future. That's if an asteroid is ever discovered to be on a collision course with Earth.

Neither Dimorphos, nor the larger asteroid Didymos that it orbits, pose a threat to Earth, but the system made for excellent target practice.

New findings and images from the impact were shared Thursday at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in Chicago.

"What we can learn from the DART mission is all part of a NASA's overarching work to understand asteroids and other small bodies in our Solar System," said Tom Statler, program scientist for DART at NASA, in a statement.

"Impacting the asteroid was just the start. Now we use the observations to study what these bodies are made of and how they were formed — as well as how to defend our planet should there ever be an asteroid headed our way."

Images captured by space and ground-based telescopes before and after the impact are helping scientists piece together what happened when the spacecraft crashed into Dimorphos at about 14,000 miles per hour.

The DART team calculated that the transfer of momentum when the spacecraft hit the asteroid was 3.6 times greater than if the asteroid had absorbed the spacecraft and no material was blasted from the surface. The momentum created when Dimorphos' surface material blasted out into space contributed to moving the asteroid more than the spacecraft did, the researchers said.

"Momentum transfer is one of the most important things we can measure, because it is information we would need to develop an impactor mission to divert a threating asteroid," said Andy Cheng, DART investigation team lead from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, in a statement.

"Understanding how a spacecraft impact will change an asteroid's momentum is key to designing a mitigation strategy for a planetary defense scenario."

The DART mission successfully changed the trajectory of the asteroid Dimorphos, marking the first time humanity intentionally changed the motion of a celestial object in space.

Prior to impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit Didymos. Now, it takes Dimorphos 11 hours and 23 minutes to circle Didymos. The DART spacecraft changed the moonlet asteroid's orbit by 32 minutes.

Initially, astronomers expected DART to be a success if it shortened the trajectory by 10 minutes.

Two far-off planets are likely made of water, according to research conducted using NASA's Hubble and Spitzer telescopes.

The so-called "water worlds" are orbiting a red dwarf star, the smallest and coolest kind of star, according to a news release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The aqueous planets are 218 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, says NASA. And they're "unlike any planets found in our solar system," the agency said.

The finding that the planets are likely composed of mostly water comes from a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy on Thursday. A research team led by Caroline Piaulet, a Ph.D. student at the University of Montreal's Institute for Research on Exoplanets, used NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to observe the distant planetary system.

The planetary system they studied is called Kepler-138 because it's located within the field of vision of NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Researchers have known about the existence of three exoplanets — the term for planets outside our solar system — within the Kepler-138 system but have only just discovered two of them are likely made out of water.

They also discovered evidence for a fourth planet that hadn't been described before.

But the finding isn't as straightforward as it might seem. The scientists didn't directly detect water at exoplanets Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d. Instead, they compared the sizes and masses of the planets to models for comparison.

When they compared the planets to the models, they found "that a significant fraction of their volume — up to half of it — should be made of materials that are lighter than rock but heavier than hydrogen or helium."

Water is the likeliest candidate for a material that's lighter than rock but heavier than hydrogen or helium, says NASA.

"We previously thought that planets that were a bit larger than Earth were big balls of metal and rock, like scaled-up versions of Earth, and that's why we called them super-Earths," said Björn Benneke, the study's co-author and professor of astrophysics at the University of Montreal, in the release. "However, we have now shown that these two planets, Kepler-138c and d, are quite different in nature and that a big fraction of their entire volume is likely composed of water."

"It is the best evidence yet for water worlds, a type of planet that was theorized by astronomers to exist for a long time," Benneke went on.

The high temperatures on these planets mean they might be enveloped in an atmosphere of steam, according to NASA.

"The temperature in Kepler-138d's atmosphere is likely above the boiling point of water, and we expect a thick, dense atmosphere made of steam on this planet," Piaulet said in the release. "Only, under that steam atmosphere there could potentially be liquid water at high pressure, or even water in another phase that occurs at high pressures, called a supercritical fluid."

The "water worlds" are outside their star's habitable zone — the area in which temperatures allow liquid water on the surface of a rocky planet, potentially supporting life. But the new planet described by the researchers, Kepler 138-e, does fall into that just-right zone, according to the release.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "‘Unlike any planets found in our solar system:’ These two planets are probably made of water, study finds"

, Fla. —

While we watch the modern-day achievements of those involved in space exploration, it's important to never forget those who went before.

Among those heroes is Sally Ride.

Documentary filmmaker Steven Barber has been on a mission to commemorate NASA's heroes like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Then it dawned on him, there wasn't a single monument highlighting NASA's women.

"In fact, in America, only 2% of the monuments represent any sort of female achievement which is crazy because you guys give us all life, right? I think we can do a little better,” Barber said.

Barber quickly raised $300,000 for a sculpture dedicated to Sally Ride. Ride was the first American female astronaut to head into space from the Kennedy Space Center in 1983 and then again in 1984.

Barber has been filming everyone involved with Sally's story and the process of her monument coming to life.

George Lundeen and his team have been working on the sculpture for the last year.

"I remember when she went up into space, and I remember the challenges she had both before and afterward with all the things she did,” Lundeen said.

Challenges like serving on the investigation team that analyzed the Challenger disaster of 1986 which exploded shortly after liftoff.

And in her personal life, she represented a very marginalized group in society. She was gay. Something that was known among NASA's inner circle but didn't surface until after her death.

Despite her small stature in real life, the gold and bronze sculpture of Sally will stand at 7-feet tall and will be placed in the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island in New York.

"My great hope, and I think this will happen, is that now I'm looking into diversity. I've been speaking to May Jenisen, the first Black woman in space. I'm speaking to Guy Blueford. He's given me the rights to build his monument as the first African American in space. It is my great hope that diversity will reign supreme once Sally is up,” Barber said.

Sixty-five women have flown in space and 12,000 of them worked for NASA.

The sculpture's unveiling will take place June 17.

Astronomers recently captured a giant solar eruption.

The magnificent display was recorded by NASA and European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft.

According to the ESA, it's the largest solar prominence eruption ever observed in a single image that includes the full sun.

The agency said that the eruption happened last Tuesday and stretched out millions of kilometers into space.

According to NASA, a solar prominence is a large, bright cloud of plasma that hangs above the sun's surface.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's new space telescope has captured its first starlight and even taken a selfie of its giant, gold mirror.

Bonus image! When it’s time to focus, sometimes you need to take a good look at yourself.

This “selfie” taken by Webb of its primary mirror was not captured by an externally mounted engineering camera, but with a special lens within its NIRCam instrument. #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/XtzCdktrCA

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) February 11, 2022

Officials for the James Webb Space Telescope said Friday that all 18 segments of the primary mirror seem to be working properly 1 1/2 months into the mission.

Starting last week, each mirror segment was pointed at a bright star 258 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.

Over the next few months, these segments will be aligned and focused as one, allowing science observations to begin by the end of June.

"Webb’s images will only become clearer and more detail-laden as its instruments arrive at their intended operating temperatures and start capturing data," NASA said.

Webb's 21-foot, gold-plated mirror is the largest ever launched into space.

One of its primary goals is to study galaxy formation and evolution. NASA says in its first year in space, researchers will lead more than 400 hours of observations.

NASA says that once it decommissions the International Space Station in 2030, it plans to return the module to the Earth by crashing it into the Pacific Ocean.

In a press release on Monday, the agency said that while the Biden Administration has extended the ISS's space station operations through 2030, the agency has been planning to transition the use of space stations to commercial businesses.

According to the agency, allowing private companies to handle space station operations will "develop both the supply and demand side of the low-Earth orbit commercial economy and the technical steps and budget required for transition."

"The private sector is technically and financially capable of developing and operating commercial low-Earth orbit destinations, with NASA's assistance. We look forward to sharing our lessons learned and operations experience with the private sector to help them develop safe, reliable, and cost-effective destinations in space," Phil McAlister, NASA Headquarters director of commercial space, said in a statement. "The report we have delivered to Congress describes, in detail, our comprehensive plan for ensuring a smooth transition to commercial destinations after retirement of the International Space Station in 2030."

Once NASA officially retires the International Space Station, the agency plans to bring the module down from Low-Earth Orbit in 2031.

According to a report released last month, NASA will gradually direct the station into a series of maneuvers that will lower its altitude. At a certain point, NASA will direct the ISS into re-entry burn over the Pacific Ocean, where it will crash into the water.

NASA says it will aim for the spacecraft to land in the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area — a remote oceanic region southeast of New Zealand, where scientists often direct spacecraft to land, as it's far away from human-inhabited landmasses.

But just because NASA is planning for the end of the ISS era doesn't mean the space station won't be busy in the years to come.

"The International Space Station is entering its third and most productive decade as a groundbreaking scientific platform in microgravity," said Robyn Gatens, NASA's director of the International Space Station. "This third decade is one of results, building on our successful global partnership to verify exploration and human research technologies to support deep space exploration, continue to return medical and environmental benefits to humanity, and lay the groundwork for a commercial future in low-Earth orbit. We look forward to maximizing these returns from the space station through 2030 while planning for transition to commercial space destinations that will follow."

HOUSTON —

Four volunteer crew members have embarked on a simulated journey to Mars inside a ground-based habitat at NASA to study the isolation and confinement of exploration missions.

The simulated journey to Mars' moon Phobos began on Friday at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and will last for 45 days.

The volunteer crew, which includes Jared Broddrick, Pietro Di Tillio, Dragos Michael Popescu and Patrick Ridgley, entered a structure called the Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA, which is "designed to serve as an analog for the rigors of real space exploration missions," NASA said in a statement.

In a video posted to NASA's Johnson Space Center Twitter account, the four men were seen entering the HERA structure before the hatch was officially closed and will not be opened until March 14.

While inside the HERA structure, the men will experience up to five minutes of delayed communication with the rest of the world, the agency said. The goal, according to NASA, is to help train the crew and NASA coordinators to practice communicating under these circumstances while ensuring a smooth operation.

"In this HERA campaign, we're learning more about how teams function in an autonomous environment where they have limited contact with Earth," said Brandon Vessey, research operations and integration element scientist for NASA's Human Research Program, or HRP.

"What we learn will inform how future exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit are performed. This will help ensure that our astronaut crews can work effectively through challenges unique to long-duration spaceflight, including communication delays," Vessey said.

This is the second of four "Campaign 6" missions conducted by HERA to facilitate research into the "behavioral and team performance of longer duration missions," NASA's website says. The final mission as part of the campaign is scheduled for Sept. 12, 2022.

To qualify for the missions, individuals must be healthy non-smokers between the ages of 30 and 55. Applicants to be part of the HERA crew submit their resumes to Johnson Space Center's Test Subject Screening group and must pass a physical and psychological test to be selected.

HRP is set to perform 15 studies throughout the missions to collect data that will help NASA land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, a plan known as "Artemis." The goal is to establish the first long-term presence on the Moon, which will help inform the agency as it prepares to send the first astronauts to Mars, according to NASA.

Friday marks the 36th anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle explosion, a disaster that killed seven people 73 seconds after launch.An O-ring failure blamed on cold weather doomed the shuttle before it even left the launch pad.Just a few seconds into the mission, a flame was seen breaking through the solid rocket booster that would ultimately lead to the catastrophic explosion that claimed the lives of astronauts Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnick and teacher Christa McAuliffe. Their names were added to the Space Memorial Mirror at the NASA Kennedy Space Center.The incident resulted in a 32-month suspension of NASA's shuttle program and the creation of the Rogers Commission, a group created by Ronald Reagan to examine what went wrong.Here's a look at what you need to know about the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. FactsSeven crew members died in the explosion, including Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher in space.The explosion was a result of a rocket booster failure which ignited the fuel tank.Some of the objectives of Mission STS-51L included the "Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program" (CHAMP), a fluid dynamics experiment and lesson plans and telecasts by Christa McAuliffe.TimelineApril 4, 1983 - The Challenger's maiden voyage, STS-6. The Challenger completed nine successful missions between 1983 and 1986.July 19, 1985 - New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe is chosen to be the first teacher in space.Jan. 28, 1986 - The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds into flight at approximately 11:40 a.m. EST.Sept. 19, 2019 - The Christa McAuliffe Commemorative Coin Act of 2019 is passed by Congress. The act calls for the Department of Treasury to "issue not more than 350,000 $1 silver coins in commemoration of Christa McAuliffe." The act was signed by former President Donald Trump on Oct. 9, 2019. The coins were minted to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the tragedy.CrewFrancis R. (Dick) Scobee - Spacecraft Commander- Born - May 19, 1939- Birthplace - Cle Elum, Washington- Family - Wife, June, and two childrenMichael J. Smith - Pilot- Born on April 30, 1945- Birthplace - Beaufort, North CarolinaJudith A. Resnik - Mission Specialist- Born - April 5, 1949- Birthplace - Akron, OhioRonald E. McNair - Mission Specialist- Born - Oct. 21, 1950- Birthplace - Lake City, South Carolina- Family - Wife, Cheryl, and two childrenEllison S. Onizuka- Mission Specialist- Born - June 24, 1946- Birthplace - Kealakekua, Kona, HawaiiGregory B. Jarvis - Payload Specialist- Born - Aug. 24, 1944- Birthplace - Detroit, Michigan- An engineer who worked for Hughes Aircraft Corp.Christa McAuliffe- First teacher in space- Born - Sept. 2, 1948- Birthplace - Boston, MassachusettsWatch the video above to learn more about this story.

An enormous asteroid that is nearly as large as two Empire State Buildings passed safely by Earth on Tuesday astronomers said.

NASA classifies the object as "potentially hazardous," yet the asteroid was always expected to move past our planet safely at 43,754 mph at a distance of 1.2 million miles away from Earth, according to NASA.

While the distance from Earth sounds safe, astronomers still consider it close for an object of its size. Scientists say there is no danger of a collision with Earth but that the object is still classified as having the potential to be hazardous.

NASA JPL

The Virtual Telescope Project, based in Italy's capital city Rome, live-streamed the asteroid, called 7482 (1994 PC1), as it was set to pass Earth. Streaming began live at 3 p.m. EST on Tuesday just before the object was at its closest approach to Earth.

Virtual Telescope Project's founder Gianluca Masi wrote on their livestream page that the "Virtual Telescope Project will show it live online, just at the fly-by time, when it will peak in brightness."

According to Live Science, 7482 (1994 PC1) would make its closest approach to our planet Tuesday at 4:51 p.m. EST.

Watch here:
https://youtu.be/xLrj1xa43pw

The most powerful space telescope ever built is keeping its cool in space.

The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched on Christmas Day, successfully completed the deployment of its 70-foot sunshield on Tuesday. This critical milestone is one of several that must occur for the NASA observatory to function properly in space, and having achieved it was a big relief for the Webb team.

"Unfolding Webb's sunshield in space is an incredible milestone, crucial to the success of the mission," said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb's program director at NASA Headquarters, in a statement. "Thousands of parts had to work with precision for this marvel of engineering to fully unfurl. The team has accomplished an audacious feat with the complexity of this deployment — one of the boldest undertakings yet for Webb."

It's one of the most challenging spacecraft deployments NASA has ever attempted, according to the agency.

Unfurling a tennis court in space

The massive five-layer sunshield will protect Webb's giant mirror and instruments from the sun's heat. Both the mirror and instruments need to be kept at a very frigid negative 370 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 188 degrees Celsius) to be able to observe the universe as designed. Each of the five sheets is as thin as a human hair and is coated with reflective metal.

When Webb launched, the sunshield was folded up to fit inside the Ariane 5 rocket that carried the telescope into space. The eight-day process to unfold and tighten the protective shield began on Dec. 28. This included unfolding the support structure for the shield over the course of multiple days before the tensioning, or tightening, of each layer could begin.

The fifth layer of the sunshield was tightened and secured into place Tuesday at 11:59 a.m. ET.

Overall, the entire process, which was controlled by teams on Earth, included the perfect, coordinated movement of hundreds of release mechanisms, hinges, deployment motors, pulleys and cables.

"The membrane tensioning phase of sunshield deployment is especially challenging because there are complex interactions between the structures, the tensioning mechanisms, the cables and the membranes," said James Cooper, NASA's Webb sunshield manager, based at Goddard Space Flight Center, in a statement. "This was the hardest part to test on the ground, so it feels awesome to have everything go so well today."

The teams have been working 12-hour shifts to ensure that everything goes smoothly with Webb's deployments.

With the sunshield successfully in place, Webb's project manager Bill Ochs said the telescope has overcome the potential for 70% to 75% of the more than 300 single-point failures that could disrupt its ability to function.

"This milestone represents the pioneering spirit of thousands of engineers, scientists, and technicians who spent significant portions of their careers developing, designing, manufacturing, and testing this first-of-its kind space technology," said Jim Flynn, sunshield manager at Northrop Grumman, NASA's primary contractor for Webb, in a statement.

The telescope has the ability to look back in time, using its infrared observations to reveal otherwise invisible aspects and look deeper into the universe than ever before.

The Webb telescope will look at every phase of cosmic history, including the first glows after the Big Bang that created our universe and the formation of the galaxies, stars and planets that fill it today. Its capabilities will enable the observatory to peer inside the atmospheres of exoplanets and investigate faint signals from the first galaxies formed 13.5 billion years ago.

"This is the first time anyone has ever attempted to put a telescope this large into space," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. "Webb required not only careful assembly but also careful deployments. The success of its most challenging deployment — the sunshield — is an incredible testament to the human ingenuity and engineering skill that will enable Webb to accomplish its science goals."

What comes next

Webb is expected to take about 29 days to reach its intended orbit a million miles from Earth, with other critical steps along the way – and that includes another big challenge later this week: unfolding the telescope's mirror.

The mirror can extend 21 feet and 4 inches — a massive length that will allow it to collect more light from objects once the telescope is in space. The more light the mirror can collect, the more details the telescope can observe.

It's the largest mirror NASA has ever built, but its size created a unique problem. The mirror was so large that it couldn't fit inside a rocket. Engineers designed the telescope as a series of moving parts that can fold origami-style and fit inside a 16-foot space for launch.

This is the next series of crucial steps for Webb — making sure the mirror's 18 hexagonal gold-coated segments unfold and lock together. All of these steps are expected to be completed by the end of this week.

Finally, Webb will make one more trajectory adjustment to insert itself into an orbit that reaches beyond the moon.

While that rounds out the 29 days, the telescope will go through a period of commissioning in space that lasts for about five and a half months, which involves cooling down, aligning and calibrating its instruments. All of the instruments also will go through a checkout process to see how they are functioning.

Webb will begin to collect data and its first images later in 2022, and those are expected to be released in June or July, forever changing the way we see and understand the universe.

The sun is the literal star of the show in our solar system, but we're still trying to figure out our celestial disco ball.

Debates about the sun were first posed by ancient Greek philosophers. Thousands of years later, the combined work of people like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton helped determine that planets orbit the sun.

Many questions about our sun remain, like the nature of the energized wind that streams away from it across the solar system, or why the fiery orb's outer atmosphere is so much hotter than the surface.

It's why NASA sent the Parker Solar Probe on a seven-year mission to investigate in 2018. The spacecraft has already uncovered surprising things.

Now, at its closest approach to the sun yet, we're getting to the good stuff.

Solar update

It's official: Humans have used a spacecraft to "touch the sun" and revealed some unusual insights about our star.

The Parker Solar Probe successfully flew through the sun's corona, or upper atmosphere, to sample particles and our star's magnetic fields. This NASA goal was 60 years in the making.

Because the spacecraft will continue to draw closer to the sun, especially during an anticipated peak in solar activity, even more surprises are sure to be in store as the mission goes on.

Fantastic creatures

This critter's got legs and knows how to use them. In fact, it has the most legs of any living animal.

It's a true millipede with 1,306 legs. Mille means "thousand" in Latin, but known millipede species topped out at 750 legs until this discovery.

Scientists found the real McCoy living deep underground in Western Australia. It's only 3.7 inches long, but it has 330 body segments.

In case you're wondering, the researchers recounted the legs, just to be sure.

A long time ago

A previously unknown human population lived on the isolated Faroe Islands hundreds of years before the Vikings arrived -- and researchers found out thanks to ancient sheep poop.

The rugged archipelago, located between Norway and Iceland, was first reached by people who brought livestock with them in 500 AD. The Vikings later arrived in the 800s.

Analysis of sediment cores taken from a lake on one of the Faroe Islands helped researchers establish a timeline of when the non-native sheep, and their human owners, arrived.

The exact identity of these people remains a mystery, but the team has an idea of who they were, thanks to some intriguing clues.

Other worlds

Mars is the scientific gift that keeps on giving. This week, researchers made several groundbreaking discoveries that change our understanding of the red planet.

It turns out that the Perseverance rover has been driving over the remains of ancient volcanic lava for months -- something that was "completely unexpected" for mission scientists.

The rocks that Percy has sampled so far were also found to have interacted with water multiple times, and some of them include organic molecules.

And a European orbiter investigating Valles Marineris on Mars -- picture the Grand Canyon, but 10 times longer, five times deeper and 20 times wider -- found it has "significant amounts of water."

Consequences

The Arctic is suffering as our planet warms. The typically frozen biome failed its annual health check due to the climate crisis.

More than 100 scientists shared the news in the Arctic Report Card this week. The report tracked changes in sea ice, snow, temperatures, animals and even vegetation, all pointing to the fact that the Arctic is melting.

Meanwhile, researchers warned that a critical ice shelf in Antarctica could shatter within the next five years. Its presence is safeguarding the so-called "Doomsday glacier."

Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier already accounts for about 4% of annual global sea level rise. Irreversible changes throughout the planet could result from its demise.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

The first NASA mission that will fly by a total of eight ancient asteroids has launched on its ambitious journey.

Weather conditions were greater than 90% favorable Saturday morning when the Lucy mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:34 a.m. ET.

Lucy will embark on a 12-year mission to explore Jupiter's Trojan asteroid swarms, which have never been observed. The Trojan asteroids, which borrow their name from Greek mythology, orbit the sun in two swarms -- one that's ahead of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and a second one that lags behind it.

So far, our only glimpses of the Trojans have been artist renderings or animations. Lucy will provide the first high-resolution images of what these asteroids look like.

Lucy is the first spacecraft designed to visit and observe these asteroids, which are remnants from the early days of our solar system. The mission will help researchers effectively peer back in time to learn how the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. Lucy's 12-year mission could also help scientists learn how our planets ended up in their current spots.

"At the heart of Lucy is the science and how it's going to talk to us about the Trojans," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

"It's so important to go observe them because these asteroids tell us about a chapter of our own story -- in this case, the history when the outer planets were forming in the solar system," Zurbuchen said. "I'm still amazed by the fact that if you pick up a rock or you look at one of those planetary bodies and you add science to it, it turns into a history book."

Visiting mysterious asteroids

There are about 7,000 Trojan asteroids, and the largest is 160 miles across. The asteroids represent the leftover material still hanging around after the giant planets in our solar system, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, formed. Even though they share an orbit with Jupiter, the asteroids are still very distant from the planet itself -- almost as far away as Jupiter is from the sun, according to NASA.

The spacecraft is set to fly by an asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and then it will explore seven of the Trojans. Over the course of its mission, Lucy will end up swinging back to Earth's orbit three separate times for gravity assists that can slingshot it on the right path. That will make Lucy the first spacecraft to travel to Jupiter and return to Earth.

The mission borrows its name from the Lucy fossil, the remains of an ancient human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. The skeleton has helped researchers piece together aspects of human evolution, and the NASA Lucy team members hope their mission will achieve a similar feat regarding the history of our solar system.

The Trojans "are held there by the gravitational effect of Jupiter and the sun, so if you put an object there early in the solar system's history, it's been stable forever," said Hal Levison, the principal investigator of the Lucy mission, based at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "These things really are the fossils of what planets formed from."

Both the fossil and the mission are a nod to the Beatles tune "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," which is why the logo for the Lucy mission includes a diamond.

Over 12 years, Lucy will travel nearly 4 billion miles moving at about 400,000 miles per hour.

Lucy will specifically visit these asteroids, all named for heroes you might recognize from Homer's "The Iliad": Eurybates, Queta, Polymele, Leucus, Orus, Patroclus and Menoetius.

Eurybates was chosen because it's the largest remnant of an ancient massive collision, meaning that it could reveal a look at what's inside an asteroid. Observations made using the Hubble Space Telescope found that the small asteroid named Queta is a satellite of Eurybates.

Each of the asteroids Lucy will fly by differ in size and color.

"One of the really surprising things about the Trojans when we started to study them from the ground is just how different they are from one another," Levison said. " So if you want to understand what this population is telling us about how the planets formed, you need to understand that diversity and that's what Lucy is intended to do."

A feat of engineering

The Lucy spacecraft is more than 46 feet from tip to tip, largely due to its giant solar panels -- each about the width of a school bus -- designed to keep up a power supply to the spacecraft's instruments. But Lucy also has fuel to help it execute some skilled maneuvers on the way to the asteroids.

It took a team of more than 500 engineers and scientists to conceptualize and build the spacecraft, said Donya Douglas-Bradshaw, Lucy project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"Lucy will be NASA's first mission to travel this far away from the sun without nuclear power," said Joan Salute, associate director for flight programs at NASA's Planetary Science Division."In order to generate enough energy, Lucy has two very large circular solar arrays that open up like Chinese fans. These open up autonomously and simultaneously, and it happens about one hour after launch."

Lucy will use three science instruments to study the asteroids, including color and black-and-white cameras, a thermometer, and an infrared imaging spectrometer to determine the composition of the asteroids' surface materials. The spacecraft will communicate with Earth using its antenna, which also can be used to help determine the masses of the asteroids.

The instruments will enable the science team to search for satellites around these asteroids as well as craters on their surfaces, which can help determine their ages as well as the origin and evolution of the asteroids.

Lucy will fly by the asteroids at about 15,000 miles per hour, about four times slower than when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft zipped by Pluto and the distant object Arrokoth, said Hal Weaver, principal investigator for Lucy's L'LORRI instrument at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Lucy will also be about 600 miles away from each asteroid during its flyby, as opposed to around 2,000 miles away from the Arrokoth flyby, which means the Trojan images will have four times better resolution.

Once the Lucy mission has finished, the team plans to propose an extended mission to explore more Trojans. The spacecraft will remain in a stable orbit that retraces the path of its exploration between Earth and Jupiter, and it won't have a chance of colliding with either for over 100,000 years. Eventually, if the orbit does grow unstable, it will likely head on a doomed mission to the sun or get kicked out of our solar system.