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night sky
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Another great photo opportunity occurs Monday after sundown: the Winter Solstice and the sighting of the "Christmas Star."

You can use a smartphone to capture what is promised to be the closest visible conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 800 years. The planets are expected to appear as one large star, lighting up the sky.

"Shooting a night sky is one of the most amazing things you can witness," says travel photographer Austin Mann.

You don't need a fancy DSLR or mirrorless camera to capture the light show. Mann and other photographers say you can get a great shot on a smartphone.

The 2020 and 2019 editions of the iPhone (11 and 12 series) offer "Night Mode," for making dark shots more possible for smartphone photographers, while the Google Pixel introduced "Night Sight," in the Pixel 4 and 5 series.

Samsung doesn't have an official name for photos, but says it too can do awesome night photos on recent Galaxy S edition phones, and shows off examples on its website.

Mann recommends going to your location shortly after sunset, which is generally between 4:20 and 4:45 in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

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The far side of the moon and distant Earth, imaged by the Chang’e-5 T1 mission service module.

HELSINKI — China’s Chang’e-5 orbiter is heading for a gravitationally stable point in space on an extended mission after delivering fresh lunar samples to Earth.

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Bethesda MD (SPX) Dec 21, 2020
Lockheed Martin has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: AJRD) for $56 per share in cash, which is expected to be reduced to $51 per share after the payment of a pre-closing special dividend. This represents a post-dividend equity value of $4.6 billion and a total transaction value of $4.4 billion including the assumption of net cash.

Steampunk in Orbit

Sunday, 20 December 2020 04:14
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Scottsdale AZ (SPX) Dec 21, 2020
December 18, 2020 - Since their introduction in 1999, CubeSats have made a dramatic mark in space, widely used for technology demonstrations, earth sensing, telecom and other missions. But their full potential has been held back by the lack of a good propulsion solution. That's about to change, thanks to a breakthrough engine design which Howe Industries has submitted to the National Scien
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Germantown MD (SPX) Dec 17, 2020
Hughes Network Systems has been chosen by OneWeb, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband satellite communications company, to develop and manufacture essential ground system technology for the new LEO constellation. In a three-year contract valued at approximately $250 million, Hughes will produce the gateway electronics for the OneWeb system as well as the core module that will be used in every us
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Paris, France (SPX) Dec 17, 2020
The French Armament General Directorate, through the Defence Innovation Agency, is supporting Exotrail to develop technologies allowing small satellites to operate in geostationary orbit. Under the RAPID programme, a funding framework operated by the Defence Innovation Agency, Exotrail will mature its technologies and extend their product portfolio to provide thrust vectoring and cold gas propul
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Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 16, 2020
UP42 has announced that image data and information from the planned LatConnect 60 constellation of mid-inclined orbit remote sensing satellites will be available on the UP42 developer platform for Earth observation data and analytics. In early 2022, LatConnect 60 will launch its first two "smart" small satellites equipped with onboard Artificial Intelligence (AI) for data pre-processing an
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Riverside CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2020
An astro-statistics course University of California, Riverside, graduate student Remington O. Sexton took three years ago taught him techniques that led him to develop free, open-source code benefiting astronomers everywhere. Called BADASS, which stands for Bayesian AGN Decomposition Analysis for SDSS Spectra, the code in its current form fits astronomical spectra of active galactic nuclei
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RL10 hotfire test

WASHINGTON — The largest U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced Dec. 20 it has inked a deal to acquire rocket engine and missile manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.4 billion. 

James Taiclet, Lockheed Martin’s president and CEO, said the acquisition gives the company a larger footprint in space and hypersonic technology.

Op-ed | Protecting our assets from space debris

Saturday, 19 December 2020 19:25
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On Nov. 2, the United States and its International Space Station partner nations celebrated 20 years of humans continuously living and working in outer space. Much has changed in the space environment over the past two decades, but one thing is clear: congestion in space — especially the explosive growth in space debris — has created an increasingly dangerous environment for our astronauts and satellites in orbit.

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Moscow (Sputnik) Dec 21, 2020
Russian cosmonaut and former commander of the International Space Station (ISS) Pavel Vinogradov told Sputnik on Saturday that the new air leak on the ISS Zvezda module did not pose any serious danger. On Friday, experts from the Moscow Region-based Mission Control Center asked the ISS crew to help locate the air leak in the Russian module Zvezda, as the station's gas reserves to compensat
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baul Brinkmann and Danielle Haynes
orlando FL (UPI) Dec 21, 2020 SpaceX launched the company's second spy satellite mission for the U.S. government Saturday morning. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 9 a.m. EST from Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The payload fairing separated about 2 1/2 minutes after liftoff. The reusable Falcon 9 rocket landed at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station about 8 1/2 minutes afte
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Beijing (XNA) Dec 21, 2020
The Chang'e 5 lunar mission has been declared a complete success after the reentry capsule carrying rock and soil samples from the moon landed safely in the designated area early on Thursday. Congratulations to all those who have participated in and contributed to this groundbreaking accomplishment. This is no doubt a solid step forward for the indigenous space industry, and potentially of

Success of lunar mission hailed

Saturday, 19 December 2020 06:32
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Beijing (XNA) Dec 21, 2020
President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message on Thursday on the success of the Chang'e 5 mission, China's most sophisticated and challenging space adventure, which has brought back the world's first lunar samples in more than 40 years. On behalf of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Military Commission, Xi extended warm congratulations a
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Beijing (XNA) Dec 21, 2020
China plans to launch four manned spacecraft as part of its space station construction program in the next two years, said an official with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) Thursday. China's manned space program will be very busy in 2021 and 2022, said Wu Yanhua, vice administrator of the CNSA, at a press conference on China's Chang'e-5 lunar mission. Wu said a total of
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