Space and Astronomy in February: What to Expect

Inexperienced Gentle for a Comet

The comet C/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.) has been steadily approaching Earth for the primary time in some 50,000 years. On Thursday, Feb. 2, the comet will make its closest method to our planet, and its green-hued ice ball and tail can be seen from the Earth’s floor.

Even when climate foils alternatives to see the comet that day, there can be extra possibilities to identify it, together with on Feb. 10, when its proximity to Mars within the evening sky could make it straightforward to seek out.

Site visitors on the Area Station

Late within the month, two spacecraft might pull as much as the Worldwide Area Station, every with necessary missions.

The primary, as early as Feb. 20, can be an empty Russian Soyuz capsule. The spacecraft’s mission is to supply a visit residence for a trio of Russian and American astronauts whose authentic journey was broken throughout what was in all probability a micrometeoroid strike in December. That crew of astronauts had been anticipated to return to Earth in March, however could keep in orbit a number of extra months.

The progress of that flight might have an effect on the timing of Crew-6, a launch of 4 astronauts to the I.S.S. aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vessel that’s to interchange the 4 astronauts of Crew-5. Flying aboard Crew-6 are Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg of NASA, Andrey Fedyaev of Russia and Sultan Alneyadi, who would be the second astronaut from the United Arab Emirates to go to the station.

New Rocket Progress

The primary flights of recent rockets (or first flights of present rockets from new locations) can be highlights of 2023.

January had a combined begin on this entrance. The corporate Rocket Lab had its first flight from a launchpad on Wallops Island in Virginia after earlier journeys from its New Zealand residence base. However an try by Virgin Orbit to launch the primary orbital rocket from England failed. The corporate ABL Area Programs additionally skilled an “energetic explosion” throughout its first launch.

There are different rockets to regulate in February. On the finish of January, SpaceX accomplished a fueling take a look at of Starship, its subsequent technology orbital rocket prototype. The rocket is central to SpaceX’s ambitions of attending to Mars and NASA’s plans to get astronauts again on the moon. The corporate could subsequent conduct a “static fireplace” this month — the place the 33 engines on the rocket’s booster stage fireplace whereas the ship itself is held in place. If that succeeds, it might arrange the rocket’s first flight to orbit in March.