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SpaceX launches final NOAA GOES weather satellite on Falcon Heavy rocket – Spaceflight Now

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SpaceX

SpaceX launches final NOAA GOES weather satellite on Falcon Heavy rocket – Spaceflight Now

For a tenth time in program history, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket roared off the launchpad at historic Launch Complex 39A. This was the beginning of the journey for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-U (GOES-U) satellite on behalf of NOAA. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now Update 10:10 p.m. EDT: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy second stage completed its third burn and deployment of the GOES-U satellite. The finale in a series of critical weather satellites for the United States surmounted some weather challenges as it began its journey to join its three fellow satellites on orbit. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-U (GOES-U) satellite is designed to provide critical weather, climate and solar data to meteorologists and other parties to enhance the safety of ...

Study Challenges Popular Idea That Easter Islanders Committed ‘Ecocide’ – State of the Planet

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Science

Study Challenges Popular Idea That Easter Islanders Committed ‘Ecocide’ – State of the Planet

Some 1,000 years ago, a small band of Polynesians sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific to settle one of the world’s most isolated places—a small, previously uninhabited island they named Rapa Nui. There, they erected hundreds of “moai,” or gigantic stone statues that now famously stand as emblems of a vanished civilization. Eventually, their numbers ballooned to unsustainable levels; they chopped down all the trees, killed off the seabirds, exhausted the soils and in the end, ruined their environment. Their population and civilization collapsed, with just a few thousand people remaining when Europeans found the island in 1722 and called it Easter Island. At least that is the longtime story, told in academic studies and popular books like Jared Diamond’s 2005 “Collapse.” A new s...

Falcon Heavy launches GOES-U weather satellite

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NASA

Falcon Heavy launches GOES-U weather satellite

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off June 25 carrying the final spacecraft in a series of geostationary weather satellites that also features several firsts. The Falcon Heavy lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A at 5:26 p.m. Eastern, 10 minutes into a two-hour window as launch directors found favorable weather despite forecasts the day before that predicted only a 30% chance of acceptable weather. The rocket’s payload, the GOES-U weather satellite, is scheduled to deploy from the Falcon Heavy’s second stage four and a half hours after liftoff, once the stage completes a sequence of three burns to place the satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. GOES-U is the fourth and final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Envir...

Set your filtered sights on the Sun – Astronomy Now

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Astronomy

Set your filtered sights on the Sun – Astronomy Now

Sunspots were widely spread on the Sun on 1 August 2023. Image: Sheri Lynn Karl. The Sun is our very own special star, which we rely on totally for our continued existence. The long summer days, hopefully blessed with the year’s best weather conditions, when the Sun rides high in the sky, are ideal for becoming better acquainted with our life-giver. When thinking of astronomy, the Sun isn’t the first thing that springs to mind but you would be missing out on glimpsing an extremely dynamic world. How is it possible to see anything when the Sun is so intensively hot and bright and what will I be able to see anyway? A suitably filtered small telescope can reveal a wealth of detail at various wavelengths, including spectacularly in hydrogen-alpha (at 656.3nm), but observing sunspots crossing...

The Truth Behind the Alien Autopsy • Latest UFO Sightings

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UFOs

The Truth Behind the Alien Autopsy • Latest UFO Sightings

In a stunning revelation, researchers have uncovered a hidden Pentagon report on UFOs that has set off a wave of investigations and debates. This report has rekindled interest in the infamous alien autopsy and the mysterious events in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.The Alien Autopsy ControversyOne of the most persistent mysteries in UFO research is the alien autopsy film. This film has resurfaced repeatedly, most recently due to a series of leaked emails involving prominent figures in the UFO research community. Among these figures is Dr. Kit Green, a former CIA employee who is both a medical doctor and a PhD. According to an 11-page document, Green was shown a film in the 1980s that closely resembled the alien autopsy footage released in 1995.These leaked emails, sent to billionaire Bob Big...