March 2023
Friday, March 31, 2023: Teams of the New Zealand-based company Rocket Lab successfully recovered the first stage of the Electron rocket after its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Electron lofted two Earth-observation satellites into low Earth orbit on Friday (March 24), but the company only shared the images of the recovery operation on Twitter a week later, Friday, March 31.
The stage has since been transported to Rocket Lab's facilities in New Zealand where it's being inspected and refurbished for future reuse.
"Once again the stage took reentry in its stride and the Rutherford engines are in great shape," Rocket Lab said in the tweet. "Next step is to analyze and requalify components to inform our future recovery efforts." – Tereza Pultarova
Thursday, March 30, 2023: NASA's Earth-observing satellite Landsat 9 photographed the track of devastation left behind by one of the tornados that swirled through Mississippi and Alabama last week.
Several tornadoes were reported during a powerful thunderstorm that hit the two U.S. states on March 24 in the evening. The track, visible in this image, runs across a 29-mile (47 kilometers) stretch of land near the town of Winona, Mississippi. The tornado, with peak winds of 150 mph (241 kph) flipped over cars, destroyed mobile homes and ripped through power lines. This tornado was somewhat less powerful than the one that demolished Rolling Fork, a town near Mississippi's border with Louisiana.
Landsat 9 captured the aftermath on March 25, one day after the event. – Tereza Pultarova
New gravitational wave-hunting instrument tests its skill on largest globular cluster
Wednesday, March 29, 2023: A new infrared imager recently installed at the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile has tested its abilities by observing the Omega Centauri globular cluster.
The new instrument, called NEWFIRM, provides high-resolution, wide-field-of-view images of the cosmos in the near-infrared light, the part of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths just a little longer than the visible light.
The instrument, which was previously installed at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona, will help astronomers search for near-infrared counterparts of gravitational wave events, NOIRLab, which operates the telescope, said in a statement. Gravitational waves are enormous ripples in spacetime triggered by collisions of supermassive objects such as black holes and neutron stars. These waves spread across vast distances of hundreds of millions of light-years, allowing astronomers to study the most energetic processes in the universe.
During its test run, however, NEWFIRM focused on a much closer object, the Milky Way galaxy's largest globular cluster Omega Centauri. Located in the constellation Centaurus some 17,000 light-years from Earth, the cluster contains approximately 10 million stars. Globular clusters are the oldest groupings of stars in the galaxy that formed some 12 to 13 billion years ago, in some cases only hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. The clusters provide a window into early epochs of the universe and are a popular target of astronomical observations. – Tereza Pultarova
Broken Soyuz departs from space station
Tuesday, March 28, 2023: A Russian Soyuz crew capsule that suffered a major coolant leak in December departed from the International Space Station on Tuesday (March 28).
The leak rendered the capsule unsafe for humans, stranding its crew of three spacemen on the orbital outpost. The three spacefarers — Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will have to stay on the space station until September, extending the length of their orbital trip to almost a year.
Instead of its crew, Soyuz-M22 brings back to Earth scientific experiments.
Russia blamed the leak on a micrometeoroid strike, although another Russian spacecraft — an uncrewed Progress crew capsule — suffered a similar leak in February. – Tereza Pultarova
Super-bright galaxy shines in new Hubble telescope image
Monday, March 27, 2023: The Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of an extremely bright galaxy some 390 million light-years away from Earth.
The galaxy, called Z 229-15, has a giant supermassive black hole at its center that gorges on dust, gas and debris. As this material spirals into the black hole at super-fast speeds, it heats up and releases light that is brighter than that of all the stars in the galaxy combined.
The galaxy, located in the constellation Lyra, on the northern sky, is sometimes classified as an active galactic nucleus (an official name for those fast-feeding black holes at galactic centers). Unlike most active galactic nuclei, however, the active galactic nucleus of Z 229-15 doesn't outshine the galaxy's stars completely, allowing astronomers to actually observe the wider galaxy as a whole. – Tereza Pultarova
Most powerful solar storm in six years supercharges auroras over the U.S.
Friday, March 24, 2023: A surprise solar storm supercharged auroras across the U.S. tonight with colorful displays visible as far south as New Mexico.
The storm, classified as a severe G4 on the 5-grade scale used by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), even forced the Rocket Lab company to delay a launch of its Electron rocket. Oddly, space weather forecasters didn't see the storm coming as it was caused by a stealthy solar eruption.
This image, showing aurora displays outside of Asheville, North Carolina, was taken by photographer James Reynolds, who posts on Twitter under the handle AshvillePictures.
Geomagnetic storms are caused by interactions of magnetized solar particles with molecules in Earth's atmosphere. Their intensity depends on the force of the streams of solar wind that hit our planet and the direction of the magnetic field they carry.
Space weather forecasters originally predicted a moderate G2 storm to occur on March 23 and 24. Such a storm would have invigorated auroras mostly at rather high latitudes. That prediction was based on flows of fast solar wind that forecasters knew were emanating from an opening in the sun's magnetic field known as a coronal hole. The G4 storm that arrived instead, was the most powerful geomagnetic storm of the current solar cycle, the 11-year ebb and flow in the generation of sunspot's, flares and eruptions. – Tereza Pultarova
3D-printed rocket launches but fails to reach orbit
Thursday, March 23, 2023: The 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket of California-based firm Relativity Space successfully lifted off for its debut flight yesterday, March 22, but failed to reach orbit after its upper stage malfunctioned.
Terran 1 blasted off from Launch Complex 16 at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 8:25 p.m. EST (0025 GMT on March 23). At first, the rocket's "Good Luck, Have Fun" test flight proceeded according to plans. The rocket successfully passed Max-Q, the moment during a rocket flight when the structures bear the highest aerodynamic loads. But about three minutes after liftoff, shortly after the separation of the second stage, something went wrong. Relativity Space hasn't yet given any reasons for the upper stage failure, but said it still considered the flight a success.
"No one's ever attempted to launch a 3D-printed rocket into orbit, and, while we didn't make it all the way today, we gathered enough data to show that flying 3D-printed rockets is viable," Relativity Space's Arwa Tizani Kelly said during the company's launch webcast on Wednesday night. – Tereza Pultarova
3D-printed rocket ready for another launch attempt
Wednesday, March 22, 2023: The 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket made by California-based company Relativity Space is waiting on a launchpad in Cape Canaveral ahead of its next debut launch attempt.
The launch attempt, the rocket's third, is planned to take place on Wednesday (March 22) during a three-hour window that opens at 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT on March 23). Relativity Space has previously scrubbed two launch attempts, one because of fuel-temperature issues, the second because of bad weather. – Tereza Pultarova
NASA rocket that will send humans to the moon next year is coming together
Tuesday, March 21, 2023: The 212-foot-tall (65 meters) core stage of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will send the first human crew since the Apollo era to the moon next year has been put together at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
Over the past few weeks, NASA and Boeing engineers joined together the rocket's five main structures. On Friday, March 17, the team completed the work by attaching the engine section and is now preparing to integrate the stage's four RS-25 engines, NASA said in a statement.
The rocket will launch the Artemis II mission with four astronauts for a lunar roundtrip in 2024. The mission paves the way for NASA's ambitious plans to establish permanent human presence on the moon and in the moon's orbit. – Tereza Pultarova
Earth on equinox
Monday, March 20, 2023: Spring has officially begun in the Northern Hemisphere today with Earth reaching the equinox. And the European weather forecasting satellite Meteosat-10 captured the moment from space.
Equinox happens twice a year, in September and March, and marks the moment when the Earth's tilted axis is perfectly perpendicular to the imaginary line between our planet and the sun. On equinoxes, both Earth's hemispheres receive the same amount of light during the day, which lasts all over the world about 12 hours.
The Meteosat image shows the so-called terminator line, the line separating day and night, which on the equinox leads directly from north to south. Meteosat took this image at 2:00 a.m. ET (0600 GMT), just as day was breaking over Europe.
The exact moment of the equinox, however, will take place at 5:24 p.m. ET (2124 GMT) today. From that moment on, the Earth's axis will start tilting again. The Northern Hemisphere will be receiving more daylight than the Southern Hemisphere. The length of the day in the north will continue increasing until the summer solstice in June when the Northern Hemisphere will experience its longest day and shortest night of the year. – Tereza Pultarova
Hubble sees newborn stars in tiny galaxy
Friday, March 17, 2023: A tiny diffuse galaxy known as UGCA 307 can be seen on the right hand side of this Hubble Space Telescope image as a hazy red-speckled cloud of stars.
The Hubble Space Telescope took this image as part of a survey studying the galactic neighborhood of our galaxy, the Milky Way. UGCA 307 is a dwarf galaxy located 26 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Corvus in the southern sky.
The galaxy has no defined structure and consists only of a diffuse band of stars with red bubbles of gas contained within, revealing areas of recent star formation.
Hubble took this image using its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which was installed on the telescope during a 2002 servicing mission. The European Space Agency, which co-funds the Hubble Space Telescope's operations, released the image on Friday, March 17. – Tereza Pultarova
New map reveals distribution of water on the moon
Thursday, March 16, 2023: A new map reveals water distribution on the moon's surface in best-ever detail.
The map, based on measurements taken by the now retired NASA's air-borne telescope SOFIA, provides hints how water may be moving across the moon's surface, NASA said in a statement.
The new map is the first to capture a wide area around the moon's south pole, which is an important target of future exploration, in such detail.
The map covers about one quarter of the Earth-facing side of the lunar surface below 60 degrees latitude and extends all the way to the south pole, NASA said in the statement.
This wide coverage enables scientists to see how individual geological features influence water distribution on the surface. – Tereza Pultarova
Falcon 9 shoots off toward the space station
Wednesday, March 15, 2023: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasting off from Florida with a Cargo Dragon capsule atop, heading to the International Space Station.
The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 8:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 14, (0030 GMT on March 15) sending SpaceX's 27th contracted cargo mission to the orbital outpost. The capsule, carrying supplies and scientific experiments, is scheduled to reach the space station on Thursday (March 16) at 7:52 a.m. EDT (1152 GMT). – Tereza Pultarova
Great Lakes winter ice cover at record low, satellites reveal
Tuesday, March 14, 2023: The Great Lakes between the U.S. and Canada appear nearly ice-free in this image captured by the European Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-3 on March 8 after an unusually warm winter that led to a record-low ice-cover.
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), only 7% of the Great Lakes' surface was covered with ice in the winter of 2022 and 2023. This value is considerably lower than the average 35 to 40% ice cover extent recorded in the years since 1973.
In a statement issued on February 17, NOAA said that data collected over the past 44 years shows a clear declining trend in the Great Lakes' winter ice cover. This year's February scored a record low, owing mostly to warmer than usual temperatures, NOAA said. – Tereza Pultarova
An orbital sunset above the Atlantic Ocean
Monday, March 13, 2023: This image shows the moment of sunset above the Atlantic Ocean captured from aboard the International Space Station.
The station orbits at the altitude of 264 miles (425 kilometers) and circles Earth every 90 minutes. Astronauts on board the space lab therefore get views of 16 sunsets and 16 sunrises every day. This time, the space station crossed the so-called terminator line, the line separating day from night as experienced on Earth off the coast of southwestern Africa. – Tereza Pultarova
Friday, March 10, 2023: A Japanese weather satellite took this stunning image of the moon emerging above Canada on Wednesday, March. 9.
The image was taken by the Himawari-9 weather forecasting satellite that observes Earth from geostationary orbit, the sweet spot at the altitude of about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers), where satellites appear suspended above a fixed spot on the planet's equator.
The image was processed and shared on Twitter by Earth-observation scientists Simon Proud of the U.K.'s National Centre for Earth Observation. – Tereza Pultarova
Near-record snowfall promises to alleviate California's drought
Thursday, March 9, 2023: The amount of water in California's largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, has doubled since last October, thanks to abundant rain and snowfall that promise to alleviate the state's severe drought problem.
This GIF consists of two images capturing the area around Lake Shasta, which were taken by Earth-observing satellites of the U.S. company Planet in October, 2022, and in March this year.
In October, the lake held 61.6 billion cubic feet (1.7 billion cubic meters) of water. Thanks to a series of powerful storms that have drenched California in the past months, the amount of water in the lake has risen to 120 billion cubic feet (3,4 billion cubic meters) by early March.
The image also shows the surrounding landscape covered in snow, the amount of which has been described as near record level. Once the snow melt season starts this spring, the amount of water in the lake will rise even further.
Water from melting snow is also more likely to increase soil moisture as it's released gradually and has a better chance of soaking into the ground compared to fast-moving rain water, Planet said in a statement. – Tereza Pultarova
Cyclone Freddy ravages Madagascar
Wednesday, March 8, 2023: European Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-3 captured this image of tropical cyclone Freddy that is currently ravaging Madagascar, having killed over 21 residents so far and forcing thousands to leave their homes.
The cyclone formed over a month ago above the Indian Ocean and is now set to become the longest lasting cyclone in history, according to CNN.
The World Meteorological Organization described Freddy as a "very rare" and "incredibly dangerous" storm. The area of low air pressure, which gave rise to Freddy, emerged on Feb. 6 off the coast of Australia. The storm then tracked thousands of miles westwards and hit the tropical island of Madagascar for the first time on Feb. 21. The storm then continued to the coast of east Africa, where it made landfall in Mozambique, causing widespread destruction. The cyclone then bounced back to Madagascar and is now expected to loop once again to Mozambique, intensifying as it moves above the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
The current record holder for the longest-lasting cyclone is Typhoon John, which kept stirring the Pacific waters for 31 days in 1994. Unlike Freddy, Typhoon John, didn't make landfall and only skirted Hawaii, where it caused minor damage. – Tereza Pultarova
3D-printed rocket awaits debut flight
Tuesday, March 7, 2023: The 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket made by California-based Relativity Space is sitting on its launchpad ahead of its debut launch attempt that is scheduled for Wednesday, March 8.
If all goes to plan, the 110-foot-tall (33.5 meters), 7.5-foot-wide (2.9 m) rocket will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Florida's space coast shortly after 1 p.m ET (1800 GMT) on Wednesday. The launch will be the first not only for Terran 1 but for Relativity Space as a company and will carry no customer payload.
The company says that Terran 1 will be the largest 3D-printed object ever to attempt orbital flight. The rocket's nine 3D-printed engines use liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas, which the company says is "best for reusability." – Tereza Pultarova
Curiosity captures twilight sun rays on Mars
Monday, March 6, 2023: NASA's veteran Mars explorer Curiosity captured this image of twilight sun rays penetrating through a veil of clouds shrouding the Red Planet last month.
The image, taken by Curiosity's Mast Camera, or Mastcam, shows the sun descending below the horizon on Feb. 2, while its rays scatter off a bank of clouds.
According to a NASA statement, this photo captures the first occasion when the "sun rays have been so clearly viewed on Mars."
Curiosity captured the scene as it embarked on the latest round of its cloud survey, which builds on its 2021 observations of noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds. While most Martian clouds hover no more than 37 miles (60 kilometers) above the ground and are composed of water ice, the clouds in the latest images appear to be at a higher altitude, where it’s especially cold. That suggests these clouds are made of carbon dioxide ice, or dry ice, NASA said in the statement. – Tereza Pultarova
Full house on International Space Station
Friday, March 2, 2023: The number of International Space Station occupants has risen to 11 after the arrival of Crew-6 aboard SpaceX's Dragon Endeavour capsule on Friday (March, 3).
The four new crew members (in their blue overalls) pose in the middle of this image with the current seven members of Expedition 68, which includes four space travelers from SpaceX's previous Crew-5 mission and three spacefarers who arrived on Russia's Soyuz M-22 (the one that experienced a fatal coolant leak in December last year).
The new arrivals are, left to right, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, NASA's Steven Bowen, Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and NASA's Woody Hoburg.
Crew-6 will replace Crew-5 astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassade of NASA, Japan's Koichi Wakata and Russia's Anna Kikina, who are expected to depart for Earth in the middle of next week. – Tereza Pultarova
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket with crewed Dragon capsule atop heads to space station
Thursday, March 2, 2023: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket can be seen in this image shortly after its liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, March 2. Atop the rocket is a crewed Dragon capsule with four spacefarers of the Crew 6 mission heading to the International Space Station.
The mission, SpaceX's seventh taking astronauts to the orbital outpost (including the demonstration flight in May 2020), launched at 12:34 a.m. ET (1234 GMT) today and is scheduled to dock with the station's Harmony module on Friday, March 3, at about 1:17 a.m. ET (617 GMT).
Aboard the capsule, called Endeavour after the namesake space shuttle mission, are NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates' (UAE) space traveler Sultan Al Neyadi, who will be the first UAE national to carry out a six-month mission on the International Space Station. – Tereza Pultarova
Auroral glow surprises astrophotographer in California's Death Valley
Wednesday, March 1, 2023: An American stargazer has caught an unexpected glimpse of aurora during an astrophotography trip to California's Death Valley.
The sighting, documented in this beautiful image that shows the arch of the Milky Way above a purple glowing horizon, may be the southernmost of the aurora spree delivered by a strong solar storm in the last two days of February.
"I was indeed shocked to see this," Shari Hunt, the author of the image, who is a medical researcher and part-time astrophotography tutor, told Space.com in an email. "I was there in Death Valley for night photography and with the storm in California, we had clouds almost every morning blocking the galactic core. This was our last morning to shoot."
At 36 degrees northern latitude, Death Valley is too far south for most aurora displays. Polar lights usually remain contained around polar circles and occasionally spread to higher parts of mid-latitudes. But despite the intense space weather conditions forecasted for Feb. 28, the spectacle wasn't expected to reach all the way to California.
Hunt first noticed the strange glow when she directed her camera to the north after setting up her gear at the popular Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. In fact, the glow was so unexpected that she first thought she must have made a mistake.
"I thought I left my camera on auto white balance or something went wrong," Hunt recalled. "I had never seen an airglow like that! So, I took another shot and told my friend who was also there to check with her camera."
The two took repeated shots, all of which revealed the eerie glow that was gradually giving way to light pollution above Las Vegas on the right hand side of the image. The single sharp spot of light in the image is a car that accidentally appeared on a local road, Hunt said.
"After looking in post and seeing the changing or dancing, I knew we had captured the aurora," said Hunt. "We checked the aurora forecast as well, which also helped confirm it!"
Hunt shot the image with a Sony A7R III camera using a f/2.8 lens, 25 second-exposure and ISO 6400 sensitivity.
For more of Hunt's astrophotography, visit her Instagram account @shari_hunt_photography or her website ShariHuntPhotography.com. – Tereza Pultarova
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