July 2023
Artemis 2 Orion spacecraft recovery training
Monday, July 31, 2023: Ahead of the launch of NASA's Artemis 2 mission in 2024, U.S. Navy personnel have begun training to recover the Orion spacecraft using a Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a mock capsule similar to the one in which the Artemis 2 crew will ride around the moon and back.
"The U.S. Navy has many unique capabilities that make it an ideal partner to support NASA," military officials stated in a video accompanying the training.
The U.S. Navy has been a key partner for NASA for these recovery operations ever since the earliest days of the American space program. Navy helicopters and vessels conducted the recovery operations for the first crewed mission by humans in 1961, Freedom 7.
Related: See Artemis 2 moon astronauts train with US Navy for Orion splashdown (photos, video)
Falcon Heavy watches another SpaceX rocket streak to orbit.
Friday, July 26, 2023: For SpaceX's 50th launch of 2023, the company launched a batch of Starlink satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Just downrange, another of SpaceX's rockets, a Falcon Heavy, stood at Launch Complex-39A, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, in Florida.
The two were scheduled to launch on the same night, but an early evening post from SpaceX revealed Falcon Heavy was delayed for the second day in a row. The scrub meant Falcon Heavy was still on the pad for the Starlink liftoff, allowing SpaceX photographer Ben Cooper to capture the image.
It's some Barbie girls, but they're not on this world -- Pair of astronaut dolls float around International Space Station
Thursday, July 25, 2023: These two DreamStar dolls were sent to the International Space Station (ISS) last year as a part of a project to highlight women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). This photo was shot last year by NASA astronaut Kayla Barron, inside the station's Cupola module, though it recently seems deserving of resurgence .
James Webb Space Telescope captures pair of baby stars in near-infrared picture
Wednesday, July 26, 2023: The James Webb Space Telescope's near-infrared camera has captured this image of Herbig-Haro 46 and 47, two stars forming in a inside a gaseous cloud, 1470 light-years away. The pair lie in the center of the bright red starburst emanating from the cloudy disc, which contributes to the stars' growing mass.
Herbig-Haro 46 and 47 were first discovered in the 1950s, but have not been captured with such detail until now. The ability of JWST's near-infrared camera to see past the nebula, which appears blue in this picture, has given astronomers the first high-definition near-infrared images of these stars.
New planetary system forms out of flaming cosmic "phoenix"
Tuesday, July 25, 2023: Astronomers have captured the image of a nebulous cloud they believe to be the formation of a gas giant around a newly formed star. Both celestial bodies are accumulating matter from the discarded fiery remnants of an even older star, long dead.
The phenomenon is located approximately 5,000 light-years away, in the constellation Monoceros. The image was created using observations from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
Studying planetary formations such as this one can give astronomers clues as to how planets in our own solar system formed, such as Jupiter. Once it's complete, scientists hope to use the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction, to study the gas cloud further.
Satellites observe Greece on fire
Monday, July 24, 2023: A wildfire that erupted last week has burnt a massive scar across the Greek holiday island of Rhodes, which is visible in this image from the European Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-2.
More than 60 wildfires have been reported across Greece since last week amid a record-breaking heatwave that has sent temperatures soaring to more than 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius) in some areas.
The wildfire that struck the popular aegean island early last week has forced tens of thousands of locals and tourists to leave their accommodation in a desperate attempt to flee the choking clouds of smoke.
This image captures the situation on Sunday, July 23. According to reports, firefighters still struggle to get the blaze under control. — Tereza Pultarova
Hubble spots boulder swarm around DART-impacted asteroid Dimorphos
Friday, July 21, 2023: Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to identify a swarm of boulders surrounding the asteroid Dimorphos, months after its collision last year with NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft.
DART's mission was to slam into Dimorphos, to see if its orbit around a larger asteroid, Didymos, would be altered. Scientists think the boulders visible in the Hubble image were shaken loose from the surface of Dimorphos as part of an ejecta plume resulting from DART's impact.
The boulders are estimated to measure between 3 and 22 feet (1-6.7 meters), and appear to be slowly drifting away form the asteroid.
Related: Hubble telescope spies cloud of space rocks created by DART asteroid impact (photos)
Astronomers discover 'Trojan' double planet
Thursday, July 20, 2023: Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) spotted a strange "Trojan planet," the first evidence of two planetary siblings sharing the same orbit around a star.
The possible co-orbital "Trojan planet" consists of a cloud of dust sharing the same orbit as the distant exoplanet PDS 70b, located just 400 light-years from Earth.
This cloud, about the size of two of Earth's moon, could eventually form into a planet, which would result in two worlds sharing the same orbit.
Related: 1st evidence found for 'Trojan planet' worlds occupying same orbit
Sunrise from 259 miles (417 km) above Earth
Wednesday, July 19, 2023: Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of an orbital sunrise as seen from 259 miles (417 kilometers) above the U.S. territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean.
An orbital sunrise occurs as a spacecraft, in this case the International Space Station (ISS), circles the planet much faster than it rotates, causing the sun to disappear and reappear behind the curve of the Earth from the spacecraft's vantage point. This means that astronauts aboard the space station see 16 sunrises each day, according to NASA.
Read more: Track the ISS: How and where to see it
Chandrayaan-3 mission launch success
Friday, July 14, 2023: This celebratory image was captured during the launch of India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the coastal island of Sriharikota today (July 14) at 5:05 a.m. EDT (0905 GMT; 2:35 p.m. local time in Sriharikota).
Chandrayaan-3 separated from the LVM3 as planned and entered orbit around Earth, kickstarting its month-long journey to the moon. If the rest of the plan goes smoothly, India will soon become the fourth country — after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China — to successfully land on the moon.
The mission is expected to land at the moon's south pole around Aug. 23 or Aug. 24. From there the lunar lander and separate rover will conduct scientific experiments on the surface for 14 Earth days (a single day on the moon). - Daisy Dobrijevic
Amazing 1st-year photo by JWST
Wednesday, July 12, 2023: This spectacular view of the stellar nursery Rho Ophiuchi was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope and released today to mark one year of amazing science peering deep into the universe.
NASA's Webb telescope is the most powerful space telescope ever launched and officially began its science mission in July 2022 after a Dec. 25, 2021 launch. This image shows a region 390 light-years from Earth bristling with star formation. At least 50 young stars are visible amid the colorful dust cloud, all of them with masses similar to that of our sun, NASA said in a description.
Related: Amazing photos from the James Webb Space Telescope's 1st year
Extremely Large Telescope takes shape
Tuesday, July 11, 2023: The European Southern Observatory (ESO) shared this image of its new Extremely Large Telescope, announcing the instrument is now half-finished.
Upon completion, the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be the largest telescope in the world, capable of observations in both visible and infrared light. The telescope is located atop the mountain Cerro Armazones in Chile's Atacama Desert and when completed will feature a main mirror consisting of 798 hexagonal segments.
If all goes according to plan, the telescope will begin scientific observations in 2028.
Related: The 10 biggest telescopes on Earth
Euclid spacecraft seen 435,000 miles (700,000 km) away
Monday, July 10, 2023: The Virtual Telescope Project took this image of the European Space Agency's Euclid spacecraft while it was at a distance of 435,000 miles (700,000 km) from Earth, roughly halfway through its voyage to its 'parking spot' in space. The image above was made using three 180-second exposures with a 14-inch (35 cm) Celestron telescope in Manciano, Italy.
Euclid is a groundbreaking mission designed to study the 'dark universe,' the energy and matter that drive the universe's expansion and evolution despite being invisible to the human eye and our scientific instruments.
Euclid launched on July 1 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The dark energy-hunting space telescope will now spend roughly a month reaching its destination where it will then spend a few months getting calibrated before beginning its mission.
Unseasonal storm batters the Netherlands
Friday, July 7, 2023: Europe's Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-3 witnesses a powerful summer storm batter the Netherlands.
Storm Poly, which hit the western European country on July 5, was the strongest summer storm the Netherlands has ever experienced. With wind gusts of up to 90 mph (146 km/h), the storm caused widespread damage, disrupting train services and grounding flights. – Tereza Pultarova
Europe's Ariane 5 rocket rises into the air for the final time
Thursday, July 5, 2023: Europe's heavy-lift rocket Ariane 5 rose into the air for the final time on Wednesday, July 5, to cap nearly three decades of service before retirement.
The workhorse rocket, first launched in 1996, lofted some eminent payload into Earth's orbit during its time including the James Webb Space Telescope, the European comet chaser Rosetta and more recently the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice).
During its final liftoff from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, the rocket injected into orbit the French military satellite Syracuse 4B and German experimental craft Heinrich-Hertz.
Hailed for its reliability, Ariane 5 was once a customer favorite, but in recent years the rocket and its operator Arianespace have been losing out to SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 rocket.
Arianespace is now working to get the successor Ariane 6 off the ground, but has been plagued by years of delays. – Tereza Pultarova
Supermoon rises above a Portuguese castle
Wednesday, July 5, 2023: A stunning supermoon rises above the Fort of Santa Luzia in central Portugal in this image taken by astrophotographer Sérgio Conceição on July 3.
A supermoon is a larger than normal full moon that appears when Earth's natural satellite aligns with the planet and the sun at a closer than average distance from Earth. The moon's trajectory around our planet is not circular but somewhat squashed. As a result, the moon's distance from the planet varies from 223,000 to 250,000 miles (360,000 to 400,000 kilometers). When the full moon occurs when the moon is at its closest to Earth, its disk appears larger and brighter to observers on Earth, a phenomenon known as the supermoon.
Conceição told Space.com he spent two years preparing to take this image as "it's difficult to frame the moon with this monument" because of the presence of other buildings and infrastructure in the vicinity.
Conceição took the image at a distance of 0.7 miles (1.2 km) from the castle at 8:52 p.m. local time on July 3 using his Canon EOS R camera with a 400mm lens. – Tereza Pultarova
Winter sea ice in Antarctica at record low
Monday, July 3, 2023: The extent of winter sea ice in Antarctica hit a record low in June, remaining well below the previous minimum for this part of the year.
Satellite measurements revealed that sea ice around the coast of the frozen continent is failing to replenish this year, remaining about 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers) below the average June extent, according to the European Union's environment-monitoring agency Copernicus.
This year's extent of Antarctic sea ice is also about 0.5 million square miles (1.3 million square kilometers) — an area about five times the size of the U.K. — below the previous June record low, the U.K. weather forecasting authority Met Office said in a statement.
"Antarctic sea ice extent reaches a maximum around the end of September and a minimum around the end of February," Ed Blockley, the head of the Met Office's Polar Climate Group, said in the statement. "At the end of June, the extent of sea ice should be building to a mid-point between the maximum and the minimum. However, this year the ice is expanding very slowly with the consequence that the extent is way below the long-term average."
Scientists don't fully understand why the sea ice is not replenishing this year, but they think that higher than normal air temperatures and "anomalous" atmospheric circulation patterns around the continent might be to blame.
Satellites began monitoring sea ice levels all over the world in 1979, so scientists now have a record that goes back more than 40 years. This year's absolute sea ice extent minimum, which took place toward the end of the Antarctic summer in February, was also the lowest ever measured. – Tereza Pultarova
The sky above the U.K. crackles with lightning in images from a new weather satellite
Monday, July 3, 2023: The sky above the U.K. crackles with lightning in first images from a new space-borne instrument designed to improve the monitoring of thunderstorms in Europe.
The images were taken by the Meteosat-12 satellite operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) from the geostationary orbit some 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth.
The satellite, launched in December 2022, is the first in Europe's new family of weather satellites designed to help the continent's meteorologists better forecast extreme weather events that arrive with an increasing frequency and severity due to progressing climate change.
Satellites of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have used lightning imagers before, but Meteosat-12, is the first to provide this type of information to European weather forecasters. – Tereza Pultarova
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