Weekly Space News – 1/14

Colliding Stars to light up night sky in 2022

This week astronomers announced that we may see the result of a binary star system merging which will cause them to explode and becoming one of the brightest objects in the sky.  While they cannot say exactly when it will happen they can make estimated based on observing the system.  Full story here.

VLT to Search for Planets in Alpha Centauri System

The Very Large Telescope (VLT) will be used to search for planets in our nearest neighbor following an agreement between European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Breakthrough Initiatives.  With the discovery of Promixa B last year and Breakthrough’s longer term plans to visit Alpha Centauri this will allow them to utilize the power of the VLT to study the system in much greater detail.  Full Story Here.

Astronauts Complete Second EVA

On Friday Astronauts performed the second spacewalk at the International Space Station.  As with the previous spacewalk the week before the primary task was to complete the swap out and installation of new Lithium Ion batteries.  Due to them completing the tasks almost two hours ahead of schedule they were also able to complete a number of get-ahead tasks.

 


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