QUA N T U M GR AVIT Y
The silver screen heads to space
The world of Hollywood
has left Earth and ven-
tured to space.
William Shatner, best known
for playing Captain James T.
Kirk in Star Trek, took a ride
on Blue Origin’s New Shepard
rocket Oct. 13.
The flight, designated NS-18,
launched from West Texas and
reached an altitude of about
66.5 miles (107 kilometers). It
thus passed the Kármán line,
the commonly recognizedboundary of space, which is
62 miles (100 km) high. At 90,
Shatner became the oldest
person to have flown to space.
The NS-18 crew included
Blue Origin vice president
of mission and flight opera-
tions Audrey Powers; Chris
Boshuizen, co-founder of satel-
lite firm Planet Labs; and Glen
de Vries, a medical software
mogul. De Vries died in a small
plane crash Nov. 11.
The launch came as BlueTO OLDLY GO. At left, William Shatner poses with his fellow NS-18 crew (left
to right: Chris Boshuizen, William Shatner, Audrey Powers, and Glen de
Vries). Above are the Soyuz MS-19 crew members (from left: Yulia Peresild,
Anton Shkaplerov, and Klim Shipenko). BLUE ORIGIN; NASA/JSCOrigin faces increased scru-
tiny of its working culture. On
Oct. 11, The Washington Post
reported allegations from
former employees regarding
the company’s culture and
leadership, including sexism.
An executive told the Post the
company takes “all claims seri-
ously” and does not tolerate
discrimination or harassment.
While Shatner launched to
space, a Russian film crew
was also making history. ActorYulia Peresild and director
Klim Shipenko spent time
on the International Space
Station (ISS), filming for the
movie The Challenge. The film
is about a surgeon who rushes
to space to save a cosmonaut
who needs an operation.
The film crew remained
on the ISS for 12 days after
blasting off Oct. 5. Cosmonaut
Oleg Novitskiy joined them
on their return back to Earth.
— HAILEY ROSE MCLAUGHLINThe ultimate fate of the Sun is well
known. In about 5 billion years, our
star will have used up all the hydrogen
fuel in its core. This will kick-start its
red giant phase, in which the Sun’s
outer layers balloon outward while its
core starts to fuse helium. This phase is
relatively short-lived, lasting only about
a billion years. After this, our star willblow off its outer layers, leaving only a
dense compact stellar cinder, known as
a white dwarf, behind.
But what will happen to the planets
in our solar system? A recent discovery
from the W.M. Keck Observatory on
Mauna Kea in Hawaii may provide a
crystal ball for researchers. Containing
a white dwarf orbited by a Jupiter-like
planet in a Jupiter-like orbit, the system
is the first discovered to resemble our
potential future.
“This evidence confirms that planets
orbiting at a large enough distance canAstronomers peer into our solar system’s future
CRYSTAL BALL. A Jupiter-like exoplanet orbits
a distant white dwarf in this artist’s concept.
The recently discovered system mirrors what
scientists believe will be the fate of our own
solar system after the Sun dies. W.M. KECK
OBSERVATORY/ADAM MAKARENKO10 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2022