technical updates

Well, that was a memorable debut. Tesla unveiled its highly anticipated new Roadster last night (Oct. 16) with a spectacular stunt, using SpaceX thrusters to make the vehicle "fly." "This is not necessarily a safety-optimized car, OK?" Elon Musk , who runs both companies, said during the livestreamed reveal, which was held at SpaceX's rocket-testing facility in McGregor, Texas. "But it takes the the fun meter to 11 out of 10." Tesla's next-gen, thruster-equipped Roadster launches itself over other vehicles during an unveiling event on Oct. 15, 2026. (Image credit: Tesla) Tesla first announced the next-gen Roadster in 2017, saying at the time that it would be released in 2020 . In 2018, Musk announced that the new car would incorporate some SpaceX tech. "SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamles...

How awesome would it be if the sun could take on a spooky green glow for Halloween? It turns out that scientists have discovered that our star may indeed go green, but only billions of years from now after its death  — and only if it then starts eating planets like a cosmic zombie. That's possible because scientists have discovered that white dwarfs, the type of stellar remnants sun-sized stars leave behind when they die, can actually take on a range of colors including green if they snack on their rocky planets like cosmic cannibals. For stellar scientists, the colors of stars have always been indicative of their temperatures. Cool stars look orange, while stars like the sun look white , and the hottest stars glow pale blue. This is akin to a blacksmith's iron glowing red, then orange, then white-hot as it heats up. Researchers have always assumed that white dwarfs follow the same rul...

On Oct. 15, 1997, NASA launched the Cassini spacecraft on a mission to explore Saturn and its moons. It lifted off aboard a Titan 4B rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It took almost seven years for the Cassini spacecraft to reach Saturn , with the spacecraft entering orbit around the ringed planet in 2004. Another smaller spacecraft called Huygens hitched a ride with Cassini, and it landed on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005. Cassini spent 13 years studying the Saturn system up close, and the mission lasted about 20 years before coming to an epic grand finale on Sept. 15, 2017 . Running low on fuel, NASA chose to steer Cassini straight into Saturn's atmosphere, where the spacecraft was destroyed . NASA's Cassini spacecraft lifts off on Oct. 15, 1997, atop a Titan IVB rocket. (Image credit: NASA) Why it mattered NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn (which carried th...

Vaonis has just announced its new generation of smart telescope technology, known as Atlas. Less of a single smart telescope and more of a new optical system, Atlas was designed with interchangeability and adaptability in mind. Its new SkyDock system allows two optical tubes to be connected and the telescope has live night sky monitoring to predict available observations. You can preorder the Vaonis Atlas with a single Atlas 80 module for $3,990, or $5,490 for the twin at Adorama . But it'll also soon be available at B&H and other retailers. Currently, there is only one optical tube, the Atlas 80, but Vaonis is planning to release add-on modules designed for looking at different night sky objects, including for planetary observation. We think this is an exciting step for smart telescope technology and is, essentially, the start of modular astronomy for amateur stargazers, allowing them ...

A Dragon is closing the gap between itself and its destination after a more than two-day-long orbital pursuit. SpaceX's cargo Dragon , flying the CRS-35 (35th Commercial Resupply Services) mission for NASA , is scheduled to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) this morning (Oct. 15), delivering fresh food, long-term provisions, research and hardware to the orbital lab and its crew. Coverage of Dragon's arrival at the ISS will begin at 9:15 a.m. EDT (1315 GMT), with docking scheduled for approximately 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT). A livestream of the rendezvous will be available here and on Space.com's homepage, courtesy of NASA. SpaceX's CRS-35 launch creates a "space jellyfish" in the sky on Oct. 13. (Image credit: SpaceX) CRS-35 launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the company's pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday (Oc...

You can tell a lot about how a child will age by looking at their parents, and it turns out that this could be true for planetary systems, too. Scientists have performed cosmic genealogy on planetary systems in the Milky Way, finding two distinct families that influence the evolution and fate of these systems. The study team, led by researchers at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), studied 300 of the best-understood multiplanet systems of the over 1,000 that astronomers have discovered in the Milky Way. The team's research clarifies how the environments around infant stars directly affect planetary fates and, in turn, the survival of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets , that are potentially capable of hosting life. That could be crucial as astronomers search for life beyond the solar system , pointing them to systems with potentially habitable planets like Earth. "T...