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Shenzhou-19 Crew Completes Second Spacewalk | China Space Station
Members of the Shenzhou-19 crew aboard China's orbiting space station completed their mission's second series of extravehicular activities (EVAs) at 1:12 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
Shenzhou-19 astronauts arrived at the Tiangong Space Station in late October 2024.
In their first EVAs on December 17, 2024, Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong set a new world record for the longest single spacewalk, spending nine hours outside the Tiangong space station. They worked on several tasks including the installation of protection devices against space debris. This feat exceeded the previous spacewalk record set by two American astronauts two decades ago.
Shenzhou-19 Crew:
Commander Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲)
Mission Specialist Wang Haoze (王浩泽)
Mission Specialist Song Lingdong (宋令东)
Video Credit: Xinhua TV Duration: 1 minute, 12 seconds Release Date: Jan. 20, 2025
Planet Saturn with Moons Tethys, Mimas, & Janus | NASA Cassini Mission
Image of planet Saturn with moons Tethys, Mimas, and Janus captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on March 13, 2006.
Tethys is Saturn’s fifth largest moon. Its irregular shape is 331 miles (533 kilometers) in mean radius, with dimensions 669 x 657 x 654 miles (1076.8 x 1057.4 x 1052.6 kilometers). This cold, airless and heavily scarred body is very similar to sister moons Dione and Rhea except that Tethys is not as heavily cratered as the other two. This may be because its proximity to Saturn causes more tidal warming, and that warming kept Tethys partially molten longer, erasing or dulling more of the early terrain.
Tethys’ density is 0.97 times that of liquid water. This suggests that Tethys is composed almost entirely of water ice plus a small amount of rock.
Less than 123 miles (198 kilometers) in mean radius, crater-covered Mimas is the smallest and innermost of Saturn’s major moons. It is not quite large enough to hold a round shape, so it is somewhat ovoid with dimensions of 129 x 122 x 119 miles (207 x 197 x 191 kilometers, respectively). Its low density suggests that it consists almost entirely of water ice. It is the only substance detected on Mimas.
At a mean distance just over 115,000 miles (186,000 kilometers) from the massive planet, Mimas takes only 22 hours and 36 minutes to complete an orbit. Mimas is tidally locked: it keeps the same face toward Saturn as it flies around the planet, just as our Moon does with Earth.
Janus is an inner satellite of Saturn. It is also known as Saturn X. It is named after the mythological Roman god, Janus. This natural satellite was first identified by French astronomer Audouin Dollfus on December 15, 1966, although it had been unknowingly photographed earlier by French optical engineer, Jean Texereau.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 and ended its mission in 2017 by deliberately plunging into Saturn's atmosphere. This method was chosen because it is necessary to ensure protection and prevent biological contamination to any of the moons of Saturn thought to offer potential habitability.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The Cassini radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.
Shenzhou-19 Astronauts Gear Up for Second Spacewalk | China Space Station
China's Shenzhou-19 crew, currently aboard the Tiangong Space Station, is ramping up preparations for their second extravehicular activities (EVAs) set to take place within the coming days.
According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the three astronauts are in good health, and the space station is operating smoothly, creating optimal conditions for the upcoming spacewalk.
In a video released on Monday, January 20, 2025, the crew was seen making final preparations ahead of the mission. They have conducted thorough checks of their spacesuits and practiced mechanical arm operations in orbit. Two crew members assigned with spacewalk have been rehearsing their tasks in their spacesuits inside the space station.
The trio has also carried out a full-process simulation and reviewed contingency plans in preparation for the EVAs.
Shenzhou-19 astronauts arrived at Tiangong in late October 2024.
In their first EVAs on December 17, 2024, Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong set a new world record for the longest single spacewalk, spending nine hours outside the Tiangong space station. They worked on several tasks including the installation of protection devices against space debris. This feat beat the previous spacewalk record set by two American astronauts two decades ago.
Since their first spacewalk, the crew has undertaken a series of tasks, including inspections and maintenance of the space station's equipment, system-wide pressure emergency drills, and preparations for the second EVAs. In addition the CMSA noted that they made steady progress in experiments in fields such as space material science, space life sciences, and aerospace medicine.
The Tarantula Nebula's Outskirts in The Large Magellanic Cloud | Hubble
This NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope picture features a dusty yet sparkling scene from one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy situated about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.
Despite being only 10–20% as massive as the Milky Way galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud contains some of the most impressive star-forming regions in the nearby Universe. The scene pictured here is on the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula, the largest and most productive star-forming region in the local Universe. At its center, the Tarantula Nebula hosts the most massive stars known, which weigh in at roughly 200 times the mass of the Sun.
The section of the nebula shown here features serene blue gas, brownish-orange dust patches and a sprinkling of multicolored stars. The stars within and behind the dust clouds appear redder than those that are not obscured by dust. Dust absorbs and scatters blue light more than red light, allowing more of the red light to reach our telescopes and making the stars appear redder than they are. This image incorporates ultraviolet and infrared light as well as visible light. Using Hubble observations of dusty nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud and other galaxies, researchers will study these distant dust grains, helping to understand the role that cosmic dust plays in the formation of new stars and planets.
Image Description: A section of a nebula, made up of layers of colored clouds of gas of varying thickness. In the background are bluish, translucent and wispy clouds; on top of these are stretches of redder and darker, clumpy dust, mostly along the bottom and right. In the bottom left corner are dense bars of dust that block light and appear black. Small stars are scattered across the nebula.
Credit: European Space Agency/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray Release Date: Jan. 20, 2025
Blue Origin New Glenn Rocket Launch: Flight NG-1 | International Space Station
International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 72 flight engineer and NASA astronaut Don Pettit:
"New Glenn rocket launch photographed from ISS on Jan 16th. This shows New Glenn upper stage in coast phase following booster separation. In this 4 minute time exposure, New Glenn is seen as the faint streak moving from lower right to upper left as it crosses the brighter vertically oriented star trails. This was not an easy photograph to take. ISS was over Oklahoma at the beginning and over central Gulf of Mexico at the end of the exposure."
"To photograph New Glenn, I set up three cameras with wide angle lens in the Cupola, figuring one would catch its exo-atmospheric trajectory."
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket successfully lifted off at 2:03 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 16, 2025. It safely reached its intended orbit during today's NG-1 mission, accomplishing its primary objective.
About New Glenn
New Glenn stands more than 320 feet (98 meters) high and features a seven-meter payload fairing, enabling twice the volume of standard five-meter class commercial launch systems.
Expedition 72 Crew Station Commander: Suni Williams Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov NASA Flight Engineers: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)/D. Pettit Image Date: Jan. 16, 2025
SpaceX Starship: Flight Test#7 Super Heavy Booster Catch—January 16, 2025
The seventh flight test of Starship launched on Thursday, January 16, 2025 at 4:37pm Central Time (CT). The Mechazilla at Starbase Texas caught the Super Heavy booster for a second time. This flight test launched a new generation ship with significant upgrades, attempting to accomplish Starship’s first payload deployment test, to fly multiple reentry experiments geared towards ship catch and reuse, and to launch and return the Super Heavy booster.
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket—collectively referred to as Starship—represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
SpaceX Starship: Flight Test#7 Super Heavy Booster Catch—January 16, 2025
The seventh flight test of Starship launched on Thursday, January 16, 2025 at 4:37pm Central Time (CT). The Mechazilla at Starbase Texas caught the Super Heavy booster for a second time. This flight test launched a new generation ship with significant upgrades, attempting to accomplish Starship’s first payload deployment test, to fly multiple reentry experiments geared towards ship catch and reuse, and to launch and return the Super Heavy booster.
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket—collectively referred to as Starship—represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
Astrophotographer Yuri Beletsky: "Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) has finally arrived in the Southern Sky! 🤩 It's clearly visible as a very bright object shortly after sunset. Although the tail is still quite short, the comet is truly beautiful. For planning the composition, I used Planit Pro."
C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is a non-periodic comet. It reached perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on January 13, 2025, at a distance of 0.09 AU (13 million km) from the Sun. It is potentially the brightest comet of 2025, with an apparent magnitude reaching −3.8 on the day of its perihelion. The comet is visible in the southern hemisphere before and after perihelion. It can only be observed in the daytime sky around perihelion in the northern hemisphere.
Comet C/2024 G3 was found by the automated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on April 5, 2024, in images obtained with a 0.5-m reflector telescope located in Río Hurtado, Chile. ATLAS is funded by NASA's planetary defense office, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy.
Shenzhou-19 Crew Work on Oxygen Production Technology | China Space Station
The Shenzhou-19 crew on board China's Tiangong Space Station has performed work related to experiments on the technology of artificial photosynthesis for extraterrestrial survival.
The crew used sampling cans to collect samples of reactants inside relevant devices and stored the samples to be brought down to the earth.
The technology simulates the natural photosynthesis of green plants through physical and chemical methods. It utilizes carbon dioxide resources in confined spaces and extraterrestrial atmospheres in situ to produce oxygen and carbon-containing fuels. It is expected to provide important technical support for human survival and exploration in outer space for the future.
In the field of microgravity physics science, the crew disassembled solid-liquid mesoscopic experiment units in the fluid physics experiment cabinet and installed experimental sample trays.
They also cleaned non-container experimental chambers, replaced experimental samples, and maintained axis mechanisms and electrodes.
Last week, the crew also participated in a number of in-orbit training programs.
For example, rendezvous and docking is one of the professional and technical training programs for astronauts during their stay in the space. The crew used the metacognitive training system to complete trainings on image recognition under varying initial conditions.
They also carried out medical rescue exercises, and emergency evacuation in the event of a fire at the space station.
Regarding equipment inspection and maintenance, the crew replaced circulation pumps of fluid loop system for space applications as planned, amongst other tasks.
The fluid loop system for space applications serves as a crucial mechanism within a space station for controlling and regulating the temperature of application system payloads. This ensures the operation of space science experiments.
Meet NASA Manager Wanessa Priesmeyer | NASA's Flight Opportunities Program
Meet Wanessa Priesmeyer, Flight Test Campaign Manager for NASA’s Flight Opportunities program. Wanessa and her team offer opportunities for researchers to test their technologies for space applications using high altitude balloons, rocket launches, or parabolic flight research. She is also involved in an exciting student challenge called TechRise.
For more information about NASA’s Flight Opportunities, visit:
Lynd 1624 (LDN 1624) is a dark nebula located in the Orion constellation. Lynd's Catalog of Dark Nebula (abbreviation: LDN) contains 1,700 dark nebulae.
Orion is a prominent set of stars visible during winter in the northern celestial hemisphere. It is one of the 88 modern constellations; it was among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy. It is named after a hunter in Greek mythology.
Objects listed in the Lynd's Catalog of Dark Nebula are numbered with the prefix LDN (not to be confused with LBN, or Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebulae), from numbers 1 to 1802.
It was originally compiled in 1962 by American astronomer Beverly Turner Lynds (August 19, 1929 – October 5, 2024). Lynds was best known for compiling two astronomical catalogues in the 1960s, Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebulae and Lynds' Catalogue of Dark Nebulae. We honor her many lasting contributions to astronomical science.
China Space Station to Host over 1,000 Research Projects
More than 1,000 research projects will be carried out at the Tiangong space station, China's national space lab, over the next 10 to 15 years, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.
At the end of last year, the office released the first report on the progress made in scientific research and applications related to China's space station to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the comprehensive completion of the space station.
According to the report, China has planned four major research areas in space: space life and human body research, microgravity physics, space astronomy and earth science, and space new technologies and applications, covering 32 research topics.
As of December 1, 2024, a total of 181 scientific and application projects have been implemented in orbit.
"In space life science, we have conducted a large number of studies on plants, animals, microorganisms and cells. In terms of plants, we have realized the first full-life-cycle cultivation of rice from germination to reproduction in the world, and the samples returned have been planted in the fields on Earth. We have also built and studied a binary ecosystem composed of zebrafish and hornwort in space, laying a good foundation for our future research on vertebrates, especially on bone loss and muscle atrophy. On refractory alloys, especially multielement alloy materials that are difficult to melt on the ground, we have conducted research under containerless conditions in space, laying the foundation for our development of important alloys such as aircraft engine blade materials in the future," said Zhang Wei, a researcher of the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The first batch of space science, application experiments, and technological trials carried out at the Chinese space station have made significant progress with fruitful original, cutting-edge and innovative outcomes, according to Zhang.
Scientific teams in various fields have published over 500 high-level papers listed on the Science Citation Index (SCI), and obtained more than 150 patents. Some achievements have been applied, thereby driving the rapid advancement of China's space science and applications.
In the near future, a large number of cutting-edge experiments will be carried out at the space station, including an experiment on the development of mouse embryos in space and researches on new materials and space astronomy.
"We have made plans on research, development and production of various kinds of materials in space, including high-entropy alloys, which are alloys formed by five or more elements, scintillator crystals, semiconductor crystals and other kinds of functional crystals. In space astronomy, we will launch major flagship facilities such as the China Space Station Telescope and the High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection facility. We hope that after they are launched in the future, there will be a large number of scientific discoveries in major cutting-edge fields such as the origin and evolution of the universe and life, and the search for exoplanets, representing Chinese contributions," Zhang said.
China launched the Shenzhou-19 crewed spaceship on Oct. 30, 2024, sending three astronauts—including the country's first female space engineer—to its orbiting space station for a six-month mission.
Astrophotographer Robert Trejo: "A bright and active night. I live in the mountains and usually covered in clouds. Finally got to view some beautiful, active aurora."
On Earth, auroras are mainly created by particles originally emitted by the Sun in the form of solar wind. When this stream of electrically charged particles gets close to our planet, it interacts with the magnetic field, which acts as a gigantic shield. While it protects Earth’s environment from solar wind particles, it can also trap a small fraction of them. Particles trapped within the magnetosphere—the region of space surrounding Earth in which charged particles are affected by its magnetic field—can be energized and then follow the magnetic field lines down to the magnetic poles. There, they interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper layers of the atmosphere, creating the flickering, colorful lights visible in the polar regions here on Earth.
Earth auroras have different names depending on which pole they occur at. Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, is the name given to auroras around the north pole and Aurora Australis, or the southern lights, is the name given for auroras around the south pole.
The Sagitta Constellation: More and More Milky Way Stars
Astrophotographer Greg Parker:
"In early October of 2024, two consecutive clear, moonless nights allowed me to capture the [first] image, the entire constellation of Sagitta. The grouping of four arrow-shaped stars lies in an inconspicuous part of the autumn sky (Northern Hemisphere), between the constellations of Aquila and Vulpecula. None of the stars that make up Sagitta are brighter than 3rd magnitude, so this constellation is often overlooked by stargazers. However, it lies in a dense part of the Milky Way. To get an idea just how densely packed the stars are here, I took a large crop out of part of the top image and magnified it 4x to get the [second] image. Incredibly, it's still jam-packed with stars! If you look closely at this cropped image, you can see where it was taken from in the main image—bottom, right of center. It's hard to imagine that every speck you see is a star."
Sagitta is a dim but distinctive constellation in the northern sky. Its name is Latin for 'arrow', not to be confused with the significantly larger constellation Sagittarius 'the archer'. It was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. Although it dates to antiquity, Sagitta has no star brighter than 3rd magnitude and has the third-smallest area of any constellation.
Gamma Sagittae is the constellation's brightest star, with an apparent magnitude of 3.47. It is an aging red giant star 90% as massive as the Sun that has cooled and expanded to a radius 54 times greater than it. Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, and Theta Sagittae are each multiple stars whose components can be seen in small telescopes. V Sagittae is a cataclysmic variable—a binary star system composed of a white dwarf accreting mass of a donor star that is expected to go nova and briefly become the most luminous star in the Milky Way and one of the brightest stars in our sky around the year 2083. Two star systems in Sagitta are known to have Jupiter-like planets, while a third—15 Sagittae—has a brown dwarf companion.
Image details: The main image is a 2-frame mosaic taken with the 2x Canon 200mm prime lenses and the 2x ASI 2600MC Pro OSC CMOS cameras, at a temperature of -5C. Each frame was a total of 5-hours exposure time using 10-minute sub-exposures.
Image & Caption Credit: Greg Parker New Forest Observatory, U. K. Coordinates: 50.819444, -1.59
Image Date: October 2024 Release Date: Jan. 17, 2025
China's Chang'e-6 Lunar Samples Shed New Light on Moon's Far Side
Chinese researchers have uncovered more mysteries about the far side of the Moon as they continued their in-depth studies of the precious lunar samples brought back to Earth by China's Chang'e-6 lunar probe last year. Studies have been ongoing since the landmark lunar probe returned to Earth last June with 1,935.3 grams of lunar samples collected from the previously unexplored far side of the Moon, marking a milestone in human space exploration.
After successfully applying to obtain 16 grams of the samples, the Institute of Geology and Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has organized over a hundred top-notch researchers to conduct analysis across multiple fields.
"The lunar samples, taken from the far side of the moon by Chang'e-6, is quite unique in the world and everyone wants to know more about it. Chinese aerospace personnel have worked so hard to get that. So, when I have a part of it, I need to put all my efforts into studying it, in order to discover something new about the lunar evolution," said Li Qiuli, a researcher from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics.
Basalt is a product of magmatic activity. It carries important information on volcanism. After getting the sample, Li and his team picked up the first batch of 108 basalt fragments for age analysis. Within the space of three months, they have already uncovered new discoveries, which were later published in Nature, the world-renowned scientific journal.
"Most of the 108 fragments were found to be 2.8 billion years old. However, there is a special basalt fragment which can date back to 4.2 billion years ago. It is the oldest basalt among the samples taken back by Chang'e-6. Therefore, the magmatic activity on the far side of the Moon has lasted at least 1.4 billion years, and the properties of the deep lunar mantle have changed a lot during this period of time. This is something revealed for the first time through this sample," Li said.
The research results made by Chinese scientists based on the basalt fragments brought back by Chang'e-6 is the first understanding of volcanic activity on the far side of the moon. This has provided a unique perspective and crucial scientific evidence for lunar evolution.
The science community also expects more mysteries about the Moon's far side to be revealed in the future, as studies into the lunar samples expand.
"The 4.2-billion-year-old basalt fragment has some special features. We have been conducting deeper researches on it. I think it could provide some key information that may change or enhance our understanding of the evolution of the moon," Li said.
Video Credit: China Global Television Network (CGTN) Duration: 1 minute, 22 seconds Release Date: Jan. 14, 2025
NOAA Earth Satellite Data Supports California Wildfire Response
As multiple wildfires began erupting across southern California on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, devastating the Los Angeles area and prompting mass evacuations, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)satellites were essential for monitoring the blazes. These satellites provided critical data on the challenging fire conditions that supported on-the-ground assessments and management efforts.
Credits: NOAA, NASA, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) Palisade Fire footage provided by CAL FIRE Duration: 2 minutes Release Date: Jan. 17, 2025
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