Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 2, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. The waxing Moon passes Mars and Regulus, which are equal in brightness this week but, as ever, different in color. SUNDAY, JUNE 1 ■ Now the Moon leaves Mars behind to get chummy with Regulus, shining only about 1° from it this evening (depending on your […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 28, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher China’s first asteroid sample return mission on May 29, 2024, is set to begin a much larger program of asteroid exploration-exploitation to assist military-space ambitions. The program would also assist longer range Chinese ambitions to create outposts into the Solar System. On May 29, from […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 26, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, MAY 26 ■ Catch the brightest asteroid, 4 Vesta, before it fades further. It’s nicely placed high in the south-southeast after the sky is fully dark (at least two hours after sunset now) in a moonless dark sky. It’s almost a month past opposition but still about […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 21, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher Chinese Propaganda Axiom: Always accuse your enemy of the offensive behavior or even crimes that you are committing while refusing to talk/negotiate with your enemy. In 2006 the United States accused China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of testing ground-based laser weapons against U.S. satellites, for […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 19, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, MAY 19 ■ The brightest asteroid, 4 Vesta, is nicely placed in a moonless dark sky in late evening. It’s about two weeks past opposition and still about magnitude 6.0. It’s located 24° below Arcturus, near the Virgo-Libra border, and about 9° and 10° above Beta and […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 14, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher The United States faces major technical and political challenges in its race with China and Russia to create sustainable manned bases on the Moon. However, it is also assuring that this is not just a geostrategic competition — as important as it is that the […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 11, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, MAY 11 ■ What is the oldest thing you have ever seen? For everyone in the world it’s at least the Sun and other objects of the solar system, age 4.6 billion years. (Virtually everything on or a little way under Earth’s surface is much younger.) Next […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 7, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher Thirty years ago in early 1995, Chinese paramilitary naval forces began a crucial phase in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) objective to impose its control over the South China Sea, clearing the way to secure global hegemony and also, hegemony in space. In those early […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 4, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SATURDAY, MAY 3 ■ Now the waxing Moon shines next to Mars. They’re only couple degrees apart. Meanwhile, Mars is less than 1° to the right of the Beehive star cluster, as binoculars or a telescope at low power will reveal. SUNDAY, MAY 4 ■ Mars skims […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, April 20, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher April 24 was an active day for the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC); It successfully launched its 20th Shenzhou manned space capsule mission atop its 3.35-meter diameter Long March-3F space launch vehicle (SLV). New information that surfaced the same day affirmed that its […]
