HercuList Secrets

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is the legacy of Halley's Comet in May's night sky

Do you remember Halley's Comet? The last time this famous object was visible was in 1986, 36 years ago. You younger readers might have little or no memory of this famous cosmic vagabond (It takes roughly 75 years to go once around the sun; ...

Boeing's Starliner crew capsule meets Atlas rocket for long-delayed test flight

Spaceflight Now

Spaceflight Now

Boeing's Starliner crew capsule moves toward ULA's Vertical Integration Facility. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now. Ready for another try at launching on a test flight to the International Space Station, Boeing rolled a repaired Starliner crew ...

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower of 2022 is peaking now

Your best bet to see shooting stars early Friday, May 6, is to get up after midnight once the moon sets. An Eta Aquarid meteor streaks across the sky. (Image credit: David Kingham/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Early risers can catch as many as 30 meteors an ...

2 big asteroids whiz past Earth in the next week. No, they definitely won't hit us.

There are two asteroids making very safe flybys of Earth in the coming days. Despite what you may have read in media reports, no one is issuing any warnings about asteroids 2009 JF1 or 467460 (2006 JF42), which will zoom by our planet on Friday (May 6) ...

Sun's gravitational lens could help find life on exoplanets

The sun's gravitational field could be used as a giant magnifying glass to observe distant exoplanets in a much greater detail than is currently possible, a new study suggests. In the study, a team ...

Cosmonaut assumes command of ISS ahead of Thursday morning departure of SpaceX's Crew-3 mission

Thomas Marshburn just checked off one of the last tasks on his orbital to-do list. The NASA astronaut handed command of the International Space Station (ISS) over to cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev today (May 4), the last day aboard the orbiting lab for ...

Boeing's Starliner capsule stacked atop Atlas V rocket ahead of crucial May 19 launch (photos)

ULA and Boeing are gearing up for Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), a crucial uncrewed test mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that's scheduled to launch on May 19. If all goes well with OFT-2, Starliner will likely be cleared to carry NASA ...

SpaceX's Crew-3 astronauts depart space station for trip home

SpaceX's Crew-3 astronaut mission is headed home to Earth. Crew-3's Dragon capsule, named Endurance, undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday (May 5) at 1:20 a.m. EDT (0520 GMT), ending the mission's six-month stay aboard the ...

Four SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts undock from space station, head for early Friday splashdown off Florida

SpaceX Crew-3 commander Raja Chari, pilot Thomas Marshburn, submariner-turned-astronaut Kayla Barron and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer strapped into their ferry ship — the Crew Dragon Endurance — and backed away from the outpost at 1:05 ...

Four space station astronauts prep for overnight undocking, early Friday splashdown

Pending a final weather check, SpaceX Crew-3 commander Raja Chari, pilot Thomas Marshburn, submariner-turned-astronaut Kayla Barron and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer planned to strap into their ferry ship and undock from the outpost ...