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Events in space don’t often unfold the way they do in movies.
But the journey of a spacecraft can yield awe-inspiring sights and surprising moments that are more spectacular than fiction.
SpaceX stacked its mega-moon rocket and capsule Starship on the launch pad this week for the launch of its fourth test flight, and the thrilling show did not disappoint.
The unmanned Starship capsule made an orbital journey before making a controlled return, its heat shield passing through the sweltering temperatures of Earth’s atmosphere. Ultimately, the rugged craft made the expected landing burn and crashed into the Indian Ocean.
The milestones achieved during the flight demonstrate Starship’s eventual reusability, which will come in handy as the SpaceX team looks to send its vehicle on journeys to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s competitor, Boeing, has made historic progress on the crewed maiden voyage of its Starliner spacecraft.
Defying gravity
After taking off on Wednesday, Starliner and its first human crew set sail for the International Space Station.
But the flight was not without problems, including helium leaks and bow thruster malfunctions.
After weathering the potential setbacks with mission control, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams received a jubilant welcome aboard the station Thursday afternoon. Now the astronaut duo will spend the next eight days on the station.
“We’re as happy as can be to be in the space,” Williams said. “It just doesn’t get much better.”
Curiosities
Giant snake motifs dominate a collection of ancient petroglyphs found across Venezuela and Colombia that are believed to be among the largest ever found.
Researchers suggest that the monumental works, which also included human figures, geometric shapes and birds, served as boundary markers of areas the engravers inhabited.
One of the snake carvings is about 42 meters long, which the researchers say may be the largest single rock carving in the world.
“You could be a warning sign: you’re in our backyard, you better behave. The other could be an identity marker: you’re in our backyard, you’re among friends,” said lead study author Dr. Philip Riris, senior lecturer at Bournemouth University in England.
“But I don’t think they had a single purpose, so they could easily have been both.”
Dino-mite!
A family hike through North Dakota’s Badlands in 2022 led to a major scientific discovery — and soon the rare dinosaur find will be on display at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Sam Fisher, his sons Jessin and Liam, then 10 and 7, and their cousin Kaiden Madsen, who was 9, saw what looked like a dinosaur leg sticking out of a rock, so they consulted a researcher at the museum.
An initial excavation suggests it is a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, and the fossil will go on display at the museum from June 21.
Experts at the museum will determine the true nature of the fossil as they remove it, and the public can watch the entire process happen in real time.
Once upon a time there was a planet
Geoscientists have found the first evidence of fresh water on Earth, trapped in ancient crystal grains dating back some 4 billion years, which is much older than expected.
Researchers previously thought that Earth was completely covered by a global ocean at the time, rather than having dry land.
A new study suggests that Earth’s water cycle was already in operation at that time.
The finding means that, geologically speaking, the recipe for the beginning of life existed not long after our world formed.
Fantastic creatures
About 50,000 years ago, giant “thunderbirds” that were larger than humans and weighed hundreds of pounds lived in the forests and grasslands of Australia.
But these flightless birds, known as mihirungs, have been difficult to find in the fossil record until now.
When researchers discovered a skull belonging to the species known as Genyornis newtoni, they set out to create a digital reconstruction of the creature.
The final product revealed that the enormous thunderbird had a face that resembled a strange goose with a powerfully muscled jaw.
Explorations
Go on a journey of curiosity with these stories:
— Engineers have devised a new plan that will allow NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to continue making stunning observations of the cosmos after the observatory repeatedly went into “safe mode” this year.
– The largest fossilized poop collection in the world is now on display at the Poozeum in Williams, Arizona, where visitors can “gain direct insight into the diet, behavior and environment of ancient creatures,” said owner George Frandsen.
– An intricately decorated blue room is the latest find unearthed at the archaeological site of Pompeii, and researchers believe it served as an ancient Roman shrine.
– Botanists have discovered that the cells of a small fern contain more than 50 times as much DNA as those of humans, making it the largest known genome, according to new research.
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