A meteor that blazed brightly across the Canberra sky last night is just a taster of what Australians can expect to see later this week.
Canberra resident David Marriott filmed the meteor streaking through clear, starry skies above the Australian Capital Territory just before 8.30pm.
Australian National University astronomer Dr Brad Tucker described the video as impressive , and he tipped Australians would be treated to a spectacular meteor shower later this week, if skies were clear.
The meteor shot across the Canberra night sky for a fleeting second.(David Marriott)
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Last night s meteor was probably the size of a small pebble, Dr Tucker said.
China launches key module of rival space station30/04/2021|2min
China has launched another craft to develop their own space station as a rival to the International Space Station which China is not allowed to participate in, according to ANU cosmologist and astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker.
“The United States doesn’t want China to cooperate in the International Space Station, essentially the International Space Station is an agreement between the United States and Russia and other participating countries,” he told Sky News.
Dr Tucker said due to US policies on interacting with the Chinese government and state operatives the country is not “allowed to send astronauts and experiments” up to the station and China wants to build their own to show they can.
Michael Collins was a vital life link for Apollo 1130/04/2021|6min
Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins died aged 90 this week and was a vital part of the mission as he was orbiting the craft around the moon, according to ANU cosmologist and astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker.
“He was the third member of Apollo 11, we obviously know Neil Armstrong the first to go on the moon and Buzz Aldrin afterwards, that only worked because Michael Collins was up in the command module orbiting around controlling it,” he told Sky News.
“He was proud of that job and he actually would have been faced to make a lot of terrible decisions if something went wrong on the lunar surface so he was kind of this vital life link and a sad passing into the history of space travel.”
Australian night skies dazzled by pink supermoon28/04/2021|5min
A pink supermoon dazzled Australian skies last night as it reached the closest point of its orbit to earth.
ANU cosmologist and astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker said, “the moon’s orbit varies by about 50,000 kilometres so last night, peaking around 1:20am Eastern Time but really throughout the night the moon was about 40,000 kilometres closer than on average.”
Mr Tucker said the supermoon is called “pink” because there is a different name for the moon in every month in the United States.
“The Harvest Moon in October for instance. So, it’s pink, it’s spring in the US, the Northern Hemisphere so the pink flowers are coming out and algae so that’s kind of the term even though it doesn’t look pink”.
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