A Weekly Summary of Top Content from Marshall, February 27 – Mach 3, 2023.
Week of February 27 – Mach 3, 2023
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 Safely Launches to Space Station
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission successfully launched to the International Space Station at 11:34 p.m. CST March 1 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The international crew are the agency’s sixth commercial crew rotation mission with SpaceX aboard the orbital laboratory.
NASA’s IXPE Unlocks Mysteries of Historic Tycho Supernova
An international team of scientists has uncovered new information about the remains of a star whose explosion was discovered 450 years ago. The results provided new clues about how the conditions in the shock waves created by titanic stellar explosions, called supernovae, accelerate particles to near the speed of light. In the new study, astronomers used NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) to study polarized X-rays from the Tycho supernova remnant.
NASA’s DART Data Validates Kinetic Impact as Planetary Defense Method
Since NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully impacted its target nearly five months ago – altering the orbit of the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos by 33 minutes – the DART team has been analyzing the data collected from the world’s first planetary defense test mission. The DART mission employed an asteroid-deflection technique known as a “kinetic impactor,” which in simplest terms means smashing a thing into another thing.
Hubble Observes Cosmic Contortions
A massive galaxy cluster in the constellation Cetus dominates the center of a new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image is populated with a serene collection of elliptical and spiral galaxies, but galaxies surrounding the central cluster appear stretched into bright arcs, as if distorted by a gargantuan magnifying glass.
Women’s History Month 2023: Celebrating Women Astronauts
As of March 2023, 72 women have flown in space. Of these, 44 have worked on the International Space Station as long-duration expedition crewmembers, as visitors on space shuttle assembly flights, or as space flight participants on short-duration missions. A new NASA article recognizes the significant accomplishments of these women from many nations as well as the pioneering women who preceded them into space.
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