Science / Space

On Monday evening, Jupiter and Saturn appeared closer to each other in the sky than they have for hundreds of years in what has become known as the Great Conjunction.

The official moniker, announced by Vice President Pence at a White House ceremony, comes one year after the creation of the newest military branch. The name drew raised eyebrows online.

SpaceX is set to launch its last rocket of 2020 from Cape Canaveral Thursday morning with a boom. There’s the chance residents along the space coast could hear a sonic boom shortly after liftoff.

Vice President Mike Pence’s announcement came as he was in Florida to attend a meeting of the National Space Council at Kennedy Space Center.

The last time Jupiter and Saturn came this close was 1623, but that conjunction was too near the sun to be seen on Earth. The most recent visible to humans was 800 years ago.

The site, south of Cape Canaveral, is one of six finalists — and the only one in Florida — to serve as the U.S. Space Command headquarters.

They received a shipment that included roast turkey and cornbread dressing.

Chuck Yeager, fighter ace, test pilot, breaker of the sound barrier and coolest of the cool, was the man even astronauts looked up to. Yeager never sought the spotlight, and was always a bit gruff.

The sample collected by the spacecraft Hayabusa2 caps a six-year mission to Ryugu. Researchers hope it will offer clues to "the secrets of the birth of the solar system and the birth of life."

Astronomers compare losing the observatory in Puerto Rico to losing a big brother. It was once the world's largest single-dish radiotelescope.

Authorities do not know where the object came from or the intent behind it.

Scientists have used a NASA probe way out in space, beyond Pluto, to measure visible light that's not connected to any known source such as stars or galaxies.