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3 hours ago
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Was it a plane? Was it a UFO? Bright light over Quebec captivates stargazers
With eyes turned to the skies, stargazers taking in the Perseid meteor shower on Tuesday night witnessed something out of this world. In a publication on Facebook, the Astrolab du parc national du Mont-Mégantic in Quebec's Eastern Townships described it as "a magnificent and luminous spiral streaking across the sky at around 10:40 p.m." Several people in the Montreal area also witnessed the strange phenomenon and reached out to CBC News describing a bright light enveloped by a fuzzy halo and warning of a UFO sighting. While it was certainly unusual, it wasn't really an unidentified flying object, but more likely the result of a rocket launch, according to the Astrolab. "It was in all likelihood the second stage of an Ariane 6 rocket which was igniting its engine in order to de-orbit itself after having released the European satellite Metop-SGA1 in a polar orbit," the Facebook post explained. The European Space Agency confirmed on its website that a weather satellite was launched Tuesday evening at 9:37 p.m. local time, from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana — an overseas department of France located in South America. The new satellite is meant to usher in "a new era of weather and climate monitoring from polar orbit." WATCH | What was that bright object flying in the sky over Quebec: According to astrophysicist Robert Lamontagne, the rocket's orbit is what allowed for the spectacle to be visible in Quebec. Most of the time rocket launches are on an equatorial orbit and so will be visible near the equator, he said. In a polar orbit, the rocket has to go around the earth circling each pole of the planet. "So the the trajectory of that the rocket made it so that from our latitude it could be seen in Montreal or the south of Quebec," he said. But to witness the phenomena, other factors also need to align, according to Lamontagne, including the time of launch and the altitude reached by the rocket. "From our point of view, we were in the dark, the sun was low below the horizon, but the rocket itself was so high that it was still lit by the by the sun," he said. And as the second stage of the rocket re-entered the earth's atmosphere, he said, "it was spinning a little bit, there was exhaust gases coming out from it and that's what people saw in the sky." A spokesperson for the Canadian Space Agency told CBC News that many observers captured video of the event, with the agency confirming it was the ESA's Ariane 6 rocket.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
NASA to unveil last piece of hardware for the Artemis II Orion mission
Aug. 12 (UPI) -- NASA is ready to show off its final piece of space flight hardware for the Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis II mission. NASA has invited media to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to see the piece. The rest of the SLS rocket for Artemis II is stacked on mobile launcher 1 at Kennedy. Artemis II, NASA's first mission with crew aboard the Orion spacecraft, is scheduled for a 10-day trip around the moon in April 2026. The Orion stage adapter, built by NASA Marshall, connects the SLS rocket's interim cryogenic propulsion stage to NASA's Orion spacecraft. The small ring structure is the topmost portion of the SLS rocket. The adapter will also carry small payloads, called CubeSats, to deep space. Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars, NASA said. That lunar flyby mission carrying four astronauts is set for launch in April 2026. It's a flight test mission that will pave the way for landing the first woman and the next man on the moon. Onboard will be Commader Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. Wiseman, Glover and Koch are NASA astronauts. Hansen is from the Canadian Space Agency. According to Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin, Artemis II builds on the uncrewed Artemis I flight test. "This mission will prove Orion's critical life support systems are ready to sustain our astronauts on longer duration missions ahead and allow the crew to practice operations essential to the success of Artemis III," Sarafin said in a statement.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
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NASA's Perseverance rover captures image on Mars that resembles a helmet
NASA's Perseverance rover has added to its trove of curious finds, as the space agency published a photo of a rock on the surface of Mars that looks like a centuries-old helmet. The rock has a pointed peak, a flared "brim," and textures that could lead reasonable observers to compare it to a witch's hat or a tent. The texture is formed by spherules on the rock. Similar formations found on Earth are created through chemical weathering, mineral precipitation or volcanic processes, according to The image, taken Aug. 5 by the rover's Left Mastcam-Z camera, was chosen as the photo of the week for week 234 of its mission on Mars. "This rock's target name is Horneflya and it's distinctive less because of its hat shape (which looks to me to be generally consistent with the pyramid shape we often see in of wind-eroded float blocks on the surface of Mars) and more because it's made almost entirely of spherules," David Agle, a spokesperson for the Perseverance team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the space news outlet. It is not the first time the rover has found a spherule-covered rock, having sent back a photo of a studded rock in March. Camera key to Mars discoveries The Left Mastcam-Z camera on the Perseverance can capture panoramic color and 3D images of the planet's surface, according to NASA, allowing scientists and observers to see Martian features more clearly. The rover is searching for signs of ancient microbial life as a part of a larger undertaking to understand the habitability of Mars. The helmet rock provides scientist a clue on what Mar's environmental history, according to Perseverance was sent to survey Jezero Crater to study the "wet history" of the Red Planet. The rover completed the climb to the summit of the crater in December 2024, three years after landing. "Conceivably, microbial life could have lived in Jezero during one or more of these wet times," NASA says on the home page for the mission. "If so, signs of their remains might be found in lakebed or shoreline sediments." Perseverance's research is intended to pave the way for humans to reach Mars in the years ahead under NASA's Artemis program, which will begin with astronauts returning to the moon to establish a base of operations. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has also expressed his vision of launching uncrewed trips to the Red Planet before humans reach it ‒ perhaps as early as 2028. Contributing: Eric Lagatta – USA TODAY This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA's Perseverance rover makes another strange finding: See photo
