Astronomy

When Artemis II swept around the far side of the Moon this April, carrying the first humans beyond Earth orbit in more than fifty years, NASA had prepared its four astronauts for something more than flying the spacecraft. It had trained them to see. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen spent two years learning to read the Moon like field geologists, hunting through impact rocks in Labrador and volcanic ash in Iceland, so that when they finally gazed down on the terrain, they could describe its colours, shadows and history with a scientist's judgement. It’s a quiet revolution in what we send astronauts to the Moon to do, and a glimpse of how the next explorers will work when they finally land.

Sports psychology plays a major role on and off the pitch, helping players manage chaos and stay strategic

The New Scientist Book Club’s read for July is Claire North’s space opera Slow Gods. In this extract from its second chapter, we learn about the upbringing of its protagonist on the planet Tu-mdo

The New Scientist Book Club’s read for July is Claire North’s space opera Slow Gods. In this extract from its second chapter, we learn about the upbringing of its protagonist on the planet Tu-mdo

Claire North, whose space opera Slow Gods is the July read for the New Scientist Book Club, discusses how a population might deal with knowledge that their planet will be destroyed in 100 years

Claire North, whose space opera Slow Gods is the July read for the New Scientist Book Club, discusses how a population might deal with knowledge that their planet will be destroyed in 100 years

The almost-full Moon steps past orange Antares between Friday and Saturday evenings, June 26th and 27th.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, June 26 – July 5 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The world of quantum video games is vast – there are hundreds that are either inspired by quantum mechanics or use quantum computers in their development. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan explores how these could change our understanding of quantum physics, or even help us make better devices

The world of quantum video games is vast – there are hundreds that are either inspired by quantum mechanics or use quantum computers in their development. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan explores how these could change our understanding of quantum physics, or even help us make better devices

Image: Cave training lab

Uranus and Neptune remain two of the most mysterious objects in the solar system, primarily because they’ve only been visited by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986 and 1989, respectively. Their “ice giant” moniker comes from longstanding hypotheses that their interiors are comprised of an icy mantle beneath their hydrogen/helium atmospheres. While Jupiter and Saturn are also comprised primarily of hydrogen and helium, Uranus and Neptune are hypothesized to have a layered structure comprised of icy elements within their interiors.

Image: These Copernicus Sentinel-2 images show agricultural development in the desert of southern Egypt, close to the border with Sudan.

The current temperatures in western and central Europe would have been virtually impossible 50 years ago, and unprecedented humidity levels make this heatwave especially dangerous

The current temperatures in western and central Europe would have been virtually impossible 50 years ago, and unprecedented humidity levels make this heatwave especially dangerous

Venus is now appearing on

Does this scene look familiar?

The ESA's Euclid space telescope took 26 hours to capture this portrait of the Milky Way's central bulge. This isn't part of its primary mission; instead it's kind of like bonus science. It'll be used in the Roman Space Telescope's gravitational microlensing search for exoplanets. Regardless of the science, it's an impressive image.

For its first billion years the universe was lost in fog, a thick haze of hydrogen that swallowed light whole. Something burned it away, and astronomers have long wondered what. Now Hubble has caught a tiny, furious galaxy in the very act of clearing the murk, glimpsed as it was just 1.4 billion years after the big bang. It may be the smoking gun for how the universe first became clear.

Welcome to the final installment in the Fermi series, where we look at the impact that making contact with extraterrestrials could have and the rules governing how such an event should be treated.