ASTRONEWS
18 ASTRONOMY • JUNE 2019
On February 22, Virgin Galactic’s
SpaceShipTwo, also named VSS
Unity, flew in space for the second
time, taking off from Mojave,
California, after days of weather
delays. The craft carried two pilots,
one crew member, and a nearly
full payload of science projects.
Unlike most spaceflights,
which fire rockets from the
ground, SpaceShipTwo is carried
on the belly of a plane named
WhiteKnightTwo. Once released,
SpaceShipTwo propels itself into
the upper atmosphere.
During the test, SpaceShipTwo
was released at a height of 45,
feet (13,700 meters) before suc-
cessfully firing its rocket engine to
reach suborbital space less than an
hour after taking off. It coasted
there for only a few minutes of
weightlessness before headingback to the ground, where it
touched down like an airplane.
SpaceShipTwo made its maiden
space voyage December 13, 2018.
February’s test was its fifth pow-
ered flight in total. The third crew
member on board was Virgin
Galactic’s chief astronaut instruc-
tor and cabin evaluation lead. Her
job was to experience flying on
the ship firsthand to better pre-
pare future passengers.
Virgin Galactic’s goal is to ferry
paying tourists into space for a few
minutes of weightlessness — and
a priceless view.
The spacecraft also carried four
research projects from NASA’s
Flight Opportunities program,
which pairs research institutions
with private companies that can fly
their projects into space. Carrying
the projects allowed the companyto perform another test: determin-
ing how the vehicle flies with a
greater weight distribution. Details
will likely come later, but ultimatelythe flight was successful, boding
well for the craft’s future in ferrying
paying passengers in addition
to cargo. — K.H.Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo reaches space for second time
Huge, rare jet bursts from a young star
MELTED MOLECULES. As the young, active star V883 Orionis flares up, its snow line — the distance from the star at which
water turns to ice — is pushed outward, thawing previously frozen organic molecules in the star’s protoplanetary disk.ENGINES ON. SpaceShipTwo, also named the VSS Unity, fires its engine during
its first successful test flight. Unity, which seats six passengers, is carried underneath
a flying plane before taking off into space under its own power. VIRGIN GALACTICTEMPER TANTRUM. At just over 150,000 light-years from Earth, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is bursting with newly formed stars. In a paper published January 24
in Nature, astronomers homed in on a particularly fertile — and visually stunning — star-forming region of the LMC named LHA 120-N 180B, informally known as N180 B,
shown at left. Probing the nebula with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, the researchers spotted a
fledgling star 12 times the mass of our Sun firing a huge, narrow jet into space, shown at right with the jet colorized to show its orientation pointing toward (blue) and away
(red) from Earth. At nearly 33 light-years long, it is one of the longest such jets observed to date. It is also the first time astronomers have spotted such a jet in a galaxy other
than the Milky Way using visible light. Although such narrow jets are often observed around low-mass baby stars, few have been found around stars weighing more than
8 solar masses. This rare example provides yet another piece of evidence suggesting small stars are not the only ones that throw tantrums in their early years. — J.P.ESO, A MCLEOD ET AL.