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Space

Friday Poll: Offer for a Meteorite

$20,000 for a Meteorite In Portland, Maine, the a police officer’s dashcam captured video of a meteorite streaking across the sky. A museum that plans to open next year has now offered a reward of $20,000 for anyone who can find and deliver to the museum a significant part of the meteorite. For today’s question:…

Blue Origin Rocket Landing

New Shepard flight on April 2, 2016 showing flight of the booster from just ahead of reentry through descent and landing. Video is from the GH2 vent camera located just below the booster’s ring fin. Via Blue Origin YouTube Channel.

Mercury’s Transit Across the Sun

NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory tracked Mercury making a rare transit across the face of the Sun [on May 9th]. The last time this event happened was in 2006, and NASA predicts it will happen again in 2019. Via CNN @ YouTube.

360 View of SpaceX Rocket Landing

Using the direction pad in the upper left corner of the video, viewers can watch a SpaceX rocket landing from multiple angles, including watching from below as the rocket descends —

SpaceX Tests a Capsule’s Ability to Hover

Eight SuperDraco thrusters, positioned around the perimeter of the vehicle in pairs called “jet packs”, fired up simultaneously to raise the Crew Dragon spacecraft for a five-second hover, generating approximately 33,000 lbs of thrust before returning the vehicle to its resting position. This test was the second of a two-part milestone under NASA’s Commercial Crew…

When Galaxies Collide

It’s so far in the future, it scarcely matters, but if one were to speculate from present conditions, the collision billions of years from now between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies would not disturb Earth, but would change the night’s sky (in a lovely way):

A Ninth Planet Once Again?

There are always new things to learn, and discover – There might be a ninth planet in the solar system after all — and it is not Pluto. Two astronomers reported on Wednesday that they had compelling signs of something bigger and farther away — something that would definitely satisfy the current definition of a…