Perhaps you havenòÀÙt noticed but new Astronotes posts have been a little short on the ground of late.IòÀÙd love to be able to say that this was because I was offworld on the International Space Station, but sadly the real reason was IòÀÙve been ill (indeed I did spend some time in a hospital bed, so perhaps I can pretend I was in some small way participating in one of those experiments when volunteers lie in bed to simulate the effects of microgravity).ˆàWell, things are getting back to normal, so what have we been missing?
19 May: A spectacular annular eclipse!
22 May:Russia and Japan announcing they are looking at the possibility of one day perhaps sending humans to the Moon when it is convenient. Perhaps
.
22-31 May:The rare spectacle of a NewSpace company delivering on its promises when Space XòÀÙs Dragon spacecraft made it to the ISS.
4 June:The US intelligence community giving NASA two surplus giant spysats for conversion to Hubble-style space telescopes.
4 June:a Dutch media company planning to colonise Mars starting in 2023. File under òÀÜIòÀÙll believe it when it happensòÀÝ.
6 June:The rare spectacle of a transit of Venus. I missed it so IòÀÙll catch the next one in 2117.
18 June:ˆàa Chinese space docking. Well done taikonauts!
21 June:The discovery of the strangest exoplanetary system yet.
28 June:Titan joins the òÀÜMoon with a subsurface water ocean clubòÀÝ
11 July:A new moon (the fifth so far) for Pluto.
(Article by Colin Johnston)
Leave a Reply