As of writing this article, there are about 14,000 satellites orbiting our planet — nearly 10,000 of which belong to SpaceX — and the number is going to increase aggressively as commercial interests in this realm continue to grow.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43823790

Apollo 9 launched from Kennedy Space Center on March 3, 1969

Due to the equinox effect, there’s approximately a double chance of seeing the northern lights, as the sun likely reached the end of a period of solar maximum activity in 10/24

Organic molecules discovered within a stone on Mars cannot be fully explained by nonbiological processes, and it's "reasonable to hypothesize" that living things could have formed these odd organic molecules, a NASA-led team reports in a new study. However, this doesn't mean scientists have found definitive proof of life on Mars, they cautioned.

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Managing this massive amount of data is a critical part of the VRO. The dense data stream flows through purpose-built fiber optic cables from the observatory to Santiago, Chile's capital city. From there it travels to Miami, Florida, then flows through existing high-speed infrastructure to the Rubin Observatory United States Data Facility (USDF) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Finally, the data flows through a dedicated, encrypted network to a United States Intelligence Community facility in California.

The data is turned into useful science products at the USDF. There, an automated system filters the images and generates alerts. Images of the events are available to scientists after only 60 seconds, while more complete images are released 80 hours later. The 80-hour delay allows orbiting satellites to be removed from the images.

also see https://www.theverge.com/science/887037/vera-c-rubin-observatory-800000-alerts

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