Copernical Team
A meteor streaked across the NYC skyline before disintegrating over New Jersey
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A meteor streaked across the New York City skyline before disintegrating over nearby New Jersey, according to NASA.
William Cooke, the head of the space agency's Meteoroid Environments Office, said the fireball was first sighted at an altitude of 51 miles (82 kilometers) above Manhattan at around 11:17 a.m. Tuesday.
The meteor passed over the southern part of Newark, New Jersey, before disintegrating 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the town of Mountainside, he said. No meteorites or other fragments of space debris reached the planet's surface.
The space rock moved at a speed of about 41,000 mph (66,000 kph) and descended at a relatively steep angle of 44 degrees from vertical, Cooke said.
Its exact trajectory is uncertain, since reports are based only on eyewitness accounts and no camera or satellite data is currently available, he said.
As of Wednesday morning, there had been approximately 40 eyewitness reports filed on the American Meteor Society website, which the agency used to generate its estimates, Cooke said.
The fireball was not part of the Perseid meteor shower, and reports of loud booms and shaking could be explained by military aircraft in the vicinity around the time of its appearance, he said.
Video: Ariane 6 liftoff from the launchpad
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While no person could get this close during Ariane 6's inaugural flight on 9 July 2024, several small cameras bravely witnessed its take-off from the launchpad.
After years of preparations, the Vulcain main stage engine ignites, arms providing cryogenic fuels to the rocket until the very last moment retract and boosters fire—Ariane 6 is space-bound. As it lifts off, vast amounts of water are pumped at high speed to dampen vibrations at the launch site, which then come rushing towards one of these small cameras in a dramatic swirl, hiding the departing rocket from view.
Ariane 6 launched from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana at 16:00 local time (20:00 BST, 21:00 CEST), designed to provide more launch power with higher flexibility and at a lower cost than its predecessors.
The launcher's configuration—with an upgraded main stage, a choice of either two or four powerful boosters and a new restartable upper stage—will provide Europe with greater efficiency and a wider range of launch services, including for the launch of multiple payloads into different orbits on a single flight.
Zero-G testing on Europe’s flattest floor
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A student team testing a new approach to satellite propulsion came to the flattest floor in Europe – based at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands – which is used to reproduce the experience of weightless free-floating in two dimensions instead of three.
Elon Musk says he's moving SpaceX, X headquarters from California to Texas
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Billionaire Elon Musk says he's moving the headquarters of SpaceX and social media company X to Texas from California.
Musk posted on X Tuesday that he plans on moving SpaceX from Hawthorne, California to the company's rocket launch site dubbed Starbase in Texas.
Satnav enables medical and emergency response
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Satellite navigation is not just about travel directions; its applications extend to search and rescue operations, agriculture, autonomous vehicles, sports and perhaps surprisingly, even health. ESA's NAVISP programme supports European companies in the creation of satnav-powered solutions with all sorts of applications – among them, emergency response and healthcare.
Double trouble: Gaia hit by micrometeoroid and solar storm
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Launched in December 2013, ESA’s Gaia spacecraft is on a mission to map the locations and motions of more than a billion stars in the Milky Way with extreme precision.
But it’s not easy being a satellite: space is a dangerous place. In recent months, hyper-velocity space dust and the strongest solar storm in 20 years have threatened Gaia’s ability to carry out the precise measurements for which it is famous.
Three-Dimensional Acoustic Quantum Hall Effect Demonstrated in New Study
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The quantum Hall effect (QHE) stands as a significant milestone in condensed matter physics, paving the way for advancements in topological physics. Extending QHE into three dimensions, however, presents substantial challenges. The primary difficulty lies in the extension of Landau levels into bands along the magnetic field direction, preventing the formation of bulk gaps.
A recent approac Tachyons Redefine Theoretical Boundaries in Modern Physics
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Tachyons are hypothetical particles that exceed the speed of light. Often considered the "enfant terrible" of modern physics, these superluminal particles were previously thought to be incompatible with the special theory of relativity. However, a recent paper in Physical Review D by physicists from the University of Warsaw and the University of Oxford reveals that such assumptions were unfounde Spin Centers Propel Quantum Computing Forward
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Quantum computing, harnessing the principles of quantum mechanics, is set to revolutionize fields such as medicine and machine learning by tackling problems too complex for classical computers. Quantum simulators, which consist of interacting quantum units, can be programmed to emulate intricate physical models, allowing scientists to extract valuable insights by controlling and measuring the in No New Physics Found in Higgs Boson Properties Study
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The Higgs boson, discovered over a decade ago in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detectors, remains elusive, with its properties still not fully understood. Recent progress comes from a collaboration between the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN), RWTH Aachen University, and the Max Planck Institute for Physics, providing new insights into its origins.