NASA

The Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft docking with the International Space Station (Image NASA TV)

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft docked to the International Space Station’s Harmony module completing the first part of its Crew-4 or SpaceX Crew-4 mission that began almost 16 hours earlier with its launch. After checking that the pressure is correctly balanced, the hatch will be opened to allow Robert Hines, Samantha Cristoforetti, Jessica Watkins, and Kjell Lindgren to enter the Station.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft starting its Crew-4 mission blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Image NASA TV)

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A little while ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in its Crew-4 or SpaceX Crew-4 mission with Robert Hines, Samantha Cristoforetti, Jessica Watkins, and Kjell Lindgren . After about eleven minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and went en route to carry out its mission. This is the 4th crewed mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft within the normal rotation of the International Space Station crew. This is also the first mission for the Freedom.

The Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft leaves the International Space Station (Image NASA TV)

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A little while ago, cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov and astronaut Mark Vande Hei returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, which landed in Kazakhstan. Shkaplerov spent nearly 6 months on the International Space Station, where he arrived on October 5, 2021, as part of Expedition 65. Dubrov and Vande Hei arrived on April 9, 2021, as part of Expedition 64 and completed a long-duration mission.

Artist's representation of the magnetar SGR 1830 and its spots (Image NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a study on the magnetar cataloged as SGR 1830-0645, or simply SGR 1830, and spots on its surface that generated X-ray emissions. A team of researchers used the NICER telescope installed on the International Space Station to monitor the outbursts on the surface of SGR 1830 and the merger of three spots into one. More data was collected thanks to NASA’s Swift Space Telescope. The conclusion is that this is an activity that has similarities with the movements of tectonic plates on Earth. The magnetic field of the magnetar can cause its surface to deform, crack, and even melt even though it’s extremely hard. Spots are areas where Sun-like coronal loops connect to the surface.

Some of the images captured by the ACS instrument (Image NASA, ESA)

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NASA and ESA celebrated the 20th anniversary of the installation of the Hubble Space Telescope’s ACS (Advanced Camera for Surveys) instrument with the publication of some images among the more than 125,000 captured during these twenty years of service. On March 7, 2002, astronauts James Newman and Mike Massimino installed the ACS during the space shuttle Columbia’s STS-109 mission. This instrument made a significant contribution to a lot of extraordinary astronomical research conducted using Hubble.