Virgin Galactic launches third spaceflight from New Mexico28/05/2021|2min
The race to bring tourists into space is heating up as Virgin Galactic has launched their third spaceflight and the first from its New Mexico port, according to ANU cosmologist and astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker.
“Virgin Galactic is really the only company focussed on just tourism, so fair their previous flights have only centred out of California the Mojave Desert but they have always had a second port out in New Mexico and this is where they’ve launched for the third time,” he told Sky News.
“This is a really big step because what Virgin Galactic really wants is, just like Virgin Airlines, serving multiple cities and locations, multiple people going up, and they’re really trying to push to get their first commercial flight.”
While most Australians craned their necks upwards to witness a rare super blood moon , the more superstitious among us had their eyes firmly trained on what was happening on the ground.
The super blood moon which was viewed last night was a “really spectacular feat” in which sunrise and sunset were “projected” onto the moon’s surface, according to ANU cosmologist and astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker.
“It turned out well … it cleared up beautifully here in Canberra and Sydney, I think and even Melbourne, notorious for its bad weather, was able to pull off some clear patches,” he said.
“So it looks like there’s been some great shots and views all across Australia seeing that nice red colour”.
Dr Tucker told Sky News the phenomenon takes place every couple of years when the moon passes into the Earth’s shadow.
“Those who were watching last night slowly saw the moon darken from like five o’clock … until a sufficient amount of the moon’s surface was covered in that shadow and it started to have that reddish hue that we saw,” he said.
“That reddish hue is coming from … essentially Earth’s atmosphere. A little bit of sunlight skim