Cosmic Chicago

22/04/2025

19/04/2025

NASA astronaut Don Pettit and his crew mates just undocked from the International Space Station and are headed home.

04/04/2025

Tune in now to watch the crew of splashdown in the Pacific Ocean to end their mission.

Watch live as a SpaceX private flight to Earth’s poles — funded by Chinese-born entrepreneur Chun Wang for himself and three polar explorers — ends with a sp...

01/04/2025

Hear from Crew 9 astronauts after their long term mission to the International Space Station.

After completing a long-duration stay aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts — Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore ...

01/04/2025

Now Launching: is launching the crew of Fram2 on a Falcon 9 rocket. The , an international crew of four rookie astronauts, will be the first humans to fly over the Earth’s polar regions.

You can watch the launch livestream below or at https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=fram2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3cIQohod5s

Watch live SpaceX coverage of Falcon 9’s launch of the Fram2 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.SpaceX will launch a bitcoin investor and th...

31/03/2025

What a success! At 12:30 PM CEST, Isar Aerospace's Spectrum launch vehicle successfully lifted off from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. The launch vehicle was terminated after approx. 30 seconds in flight, and the vehicle fell directly into the sea. The launch pad seems to be intact. With this test flight, we were able to successfully gather valuable data and experience for future missions. Thanks to strict safety procedures from both Isar Aerospace and Andøya Spaceport, all personnel remained safe at all times. With Spectrum #2 and #3 already in production, Isar Aerospace is preparing for its next launch!

CEO and Co-founder Daniel Metzler: “Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success. We had a clean liftoff, 30 seconds of flight and even got to validate our Flight Termination System.”

Photo: Isar Aerospace | Brady Kenniston, NASASpaceflight.com

26/03/2025

An au-royal view!

Webb captured bright auroras on Neptune, confirming their presence on the planet. This image of Neptune combines NASA's Hubble Space Telescope’s image of Neptune from the telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 with Webb’s Near-Infared Spectograph, showing auroral activity in cyan splotches alongside white clouds.

Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet’s magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow. All the other gas giants in our solar system have aurora too. Neptune’s aurora was the last to be confirmed with imagery, although NASA’s Voyager 2 flyby detected hints of their presence in 1989.

Read more at the link in the comments.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin (Northumbria University), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC)

18/03/2025

SpaceX Crew9 began their journey home last night when they undocked from the International Space Station. Tune in later today to watch as they reenter Earth’s atmosphere and splashdown off the cost of Florida.

18/03/2025

This motorized robotic design from the The University of Chicago look like something that can be applied to future Martian, or other planetary, rovers.

17/03/2025

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov entered the International Space Station shortly after opening the hatches between the space station and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 1:35 a.m. E...