Weekly - Firefly booster explodes during test and more
🟤 Weekly Space News - Quick and Easy.
Our Engagement Palette!
Check out our colour-coded system for our weekly space news:
🟤 Brown: For weeks that are mundane and bland.
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This week ranks brown 🟤 on the Engagement Palette.
Firefly booster explodes during test
Recently, during a ground test by Firefly Aerospace of its small Alpha rocket’s booster, the booster exploded on the site. This was a test for the company’s upcoming Flight 7. No one was hurt in the incident. Firefly’s Alpha rocket is still under development.
ESA’s Gaia discovers wave-like motion in the Milky Way
Last week, ESA’s Gaia space telescope discovered that stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, have been moving together in a wave-like motion. These large ‘ripples’ behave similarly to water in a pond and cause stars to shift up and down in different parts of the galaxy. While the stars themselves stay in their regular orbits, the wave-movement propagates through the galaxy. There may be multiple reasons for this, including past collisions with other galaxies.
Perseverance rover detects promising hint of past life on Mars
Last week, NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars detected vivianite and greigite, two substances commonly formed due to certain redox reactions on Earth. Such reactions are vital for all life processes, like photosynthesis and respiration, and are also found in microbes in deep-sea vents. This does not confirm whether life did exist on Mars, but it is an important clue.
