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When astronauts conduct spacewalks to perform maintenance outside the International Space Station, the view can be disruptive.
The sun is shining and the Earth is radiating light from a distance of 354 kilometers into the surrounding darkness.
“The only thing standing between you and the rest of the universe, seeing the entire cosmos of creation, is the glass plate of your visor on your helmet,” NASA astronaut Mike Fincke previously told CNN.
Now four civilians could witness what Fincke described as “truly breathtaking” as they attempted to conduct the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
Defying gravity
The Polaris Dawn mission begins a wild, risky journey around Earth on Tuesday.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, former Air Force pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis will spend five days aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule in an attempt to orbit the planet at a record altitude.
About 1,400 kilometers from Earth, the quartet enters the Van Allen radiation belts, where trapped, high-energy solar particles create two dangerous radiation bands.
The crew members are exposed to the vacuum of space when they open the hatch and perform a spacewalk at a lower, safer altitude, wearing brand new spacesuits developed by SpaceX.
In other space news, NASA has decided that the Starliner astronauts will return to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule in February 2025, while the Boeing Starliner capsule will return empty.
Wild kingdom
Every day as the sun sets over the rice fields of central China, orb spiders build new webs to catch fireflies, using their flickering signals to catch more prey.
The spider, known as Araneus ventricosus, achieves this deadly feat by tricking male fireflies into emitting the single pulses of light that female fireflies use as a mating signal.
Researchers aren’t sure exactly how the spiders manipulate male fireflies into mimicking females, but it could be through their venom or through a series of strategic bites.
Long ago
An investigation into unmarked graves found in the British settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, has revealed a long-hidden secret within the family of the colony’s first governor, Thomas West.
When researchers analyzed DNA from two skeletons in the graves, they discovered that both men were related to West through a shared maternal line. One of the men, Capt. William West, was born out of wedlock to West’s elderly aunt, Elizabeth.
According to the study’s authors, this scandal could be the reason William West crossed the Atlantic and joined the colony.
In addition, researchers have discovered how humans built a stone monument 5,600 years ago that was as heavy as two jumbo jets, making it much larger than Stonehenge, which is located in present-day southern Spain.
Other worlds
When the Chandrayaan-3 mission landed on the moon just over a year ago, India became the fourth country to achieve such a feat.
Now, findings from the Pragyan rover, which is located near the moon’s south pole, provide evidence for a theory about the moon’s history.
Samples collected during the Apollo missions suggest that billions of years ago, the moon was a deep magma ocean that slowly cooled and formed layers of minerals and rocks.
The Pragyan rover analyzed the lunar soil and found a type of rock that likely crystallized on the magma ocean, forming the lunar crust.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission to investigate the habitability of Jupiter’s icy moons performed the first double flyby of Earth and the moon this week. The risky maneuver put the spacecraft on course to reach Jupiter in 2031, and it captured some postcard-perfect images of both encounters.
Fantastic creatures
Two male flamingos have hatched an egg together and are now caring for the thriving, fluffy chick at Paignton Zoo in south-west England.
Although the zoo has welcomed other male pairs during the breeding season, staff have no idea how Arthur and Curtis obtained the egg.
“It’s likely that this egg became available — unprotected, just left (in a nest) — and they took their chance,” said Pete Smallbones, the zoo’s curator of birds.
The adoption and hatching of the egg are evidence of the birds’ parental instincts, and experts have theories about why the flamingos co-operated to care for the chick.
Curiosities
These fascinating stories may fascinate you:
— Astronomers have discovered an unusual object that may be a rare hypervelocity star.
It is moving so fast that it may be escaping the Milky Way’s gravity.
—A surprising image of a dinosaur fossil and the gliding dance of two birds are just two wonders captured in the winning images of the 2024 BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology Image Competition.
— The Perseverance rover is making a steep climb along the rim of a Martian crater, and what it discovers could change the way scientists understand the history of Mars.
— “ManhattAnts” have been thriving under the feet of New Yorkers for more than a decade. Now, researchers have solved the mystery of where the ant species came from.
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