Massimo Luciani

The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft blasting off (Photo courtesy Xinhua/Li Xin)

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A confirmation has arrived that three Chinese taikonauts from the Shenzhou 20 mission reached the Chinese space station Tiangong with an automated docking maneuver. They blasted off about 6.5 hours earlier atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. They form the 9th crew of the Chinese space station and will remain there for about six months, the standard duration for a mission.

The Dragon 2 cargo spacecraft blasting off atop a Falcon 9 in its CRS-32 mission (Image NASA+)

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A little while ago, the SpaceX Dragon 2 spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in its CRS-32 (Cargo Resupply Service 32) mission, also referred to as SPX-32. After almost 10 minutes, it separated successfully from the rocket’s last stage and went en route. This is the 32nd mission for the Dragon/Dragon 2 spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station with various cargoes and then return to Earth, again with various cargoes.

Alexey Ovchinin, Don Pettit and Ivan Vagner enter the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft (Image NASA+)

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A few hours ago, cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner and astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, which landed in Kazakhstan. They had reached the International Space Station on September 11, 2024, as part of a crew rotation that has returned to normal after some time.

On Friday, April 18, Alexey Ovchinin officially handed over command of the International Space Station to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi. The launch of the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft marked the start of Expedition 73.

Planetary Nebula NGC 1514 (MIRI image, annotated)

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An image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope depicts NGC 1514, a planetary nebula with a dying star at its center. The MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) captured details never seen before, especially of the rings visible only in infrared. The dying star has a companion, although in the images, it seems that thre’s a single bright star at the center of the nebula. This show will continue for many more millennia before the materials disperse into interstellar space. In the meantime, the dying star already only has a compact core left in the form of a white dwarf.