North Korea

Over the weekend, North Korea launched two ballistic missiles that fell into the sea short of Japan.

The worry is that regime could mate nuclear warheads to offensive missiles.

Blue Origins

Blue Origin has been granted an exemption from coronavirus restrictions, reports say.

BO has a major role in NASA's Artemis Moon program.

Supplying Gateway

SpaceX has won a contract with NASA to supply the agency's Gateway space station in lunar orbit,

The company is guaranteed two supply missions, but could get more.

USSF

An advanced communications satellite was launched yesterday for the U. S. Space Force.

It was the first launch for the USSF.

SpaceX

The launch of an Argentine radar satellite by SpaceX has been delayed because Argentine officials couldn't get to Florida due to travel restrictions imposed during the coronavirus emergency.

More optimistically, SpaceX is currently hiring welders to build its stainless steel Starship rocket.

Mercury

A new study suggests Mercury may have once had the stuff of life under its surface.

Further, some of it might still be there.

Musk

Elon Musk says his companies will produce 1,200 ventilators this week.

He says getting them delivered will be the harder part.

Moon Pic

On this date in 1840, the first photograph of the Moon was taken.

It was a sign of things to come.

May Launch

NASA and SpaceX are still planning for a May launch for the first Crew Dragon flight to ISS.

It will be the first time a private company will attempt to fly humans into orbit.

1998 OR2

Asteroid 1998 OR2, which may be 2.5 miles across, will fly by Earth next month.

Thankfully, there's no chance of a collision.

Al Worden

Apollo astronaut Al Worden has died at the age if 88.

Worden performed the first deep space spacewalk.

Boeing

Boeing is seeking $60 billion in federal aid.

There are murmurs of possible bankruptcy.

Planetary Defense

NASA is planning to place more emphasis on planetary defense over the next decade.

An asteroid strike is the only natural disaster humans could potentially stop at this time.

Early Giants

Astronomers have found that supermassive black holes existed fewer than a billion years after the Big Bang.

Those objects were the precursors of the huge black holes found in the centers of galaxies today.

Trans-Neptunian Objects

Astronomers have discovered 139 more objects out beyond Neptune's orbit that are not planets and not comets.

That brings the current total of such bodies to over 3,000.

ExoMars

Russia and ESA have pushed the launch of their ExoMars probe into 2022 due to fears of COVID-19 affecting staff.

The lander will search for evidence of life by digging under the Martian surface.

HD74423

Astronomers have found a teardrop shaped star, HD74423, that pulses on only one side.

The pulses, and the shape, are due to the gravity of a small companion star.

Go For May

SpaceX is looking at May for its first crewed launch.

It would be the first launch of humans by a private company.

Dark Matter

A new paper suggests German physicists may have discovered dark matter in 2014.

That still must be confirmed.

K2-18b

Astronomers have found that a sub-Neptune 110 light years away, K2-18b, not only has water vapor clouds, but that layer of its huge atmosphere has pressure similar to Earth's.

The late Carl Sagan once postulated life could exist in Earth-like layers of the atmosphere of Jupiter.

Perserverance

NASA is naming its next Mars rover Perservance.

The name was proposed by seventh grader Alex Mather.

Black Hole Life

A new research paper argues life could exist on a planet orbiting just outside the event horizon of a spinning, suppermassive black hole.

To maintain that orbit, however. the planet would have to move at nearly the speed of light.

Protein

Scientists may have found a protein in a meteorite that does not occur on Earth.

The meteorite fell to Earth in 1990.

Rings

On this date in 1979, Voyager 1 discovered the rings of Jupiter.

Since then, ring systems have also been found around Uranus and Neptune.

Waterworld Earth

A new study suggests that 3.2 billion years ago Earth sported no continents.  It was a warerworld.

That would strengthen the argument that life began around volcanic vents on the seafloor rather than in a pond.

Forming Planets

Astronomers have found more than 300 young stars in a cluster that all have protoplanetary disks.

It's more evidence that planets are common in the universe.