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Television X-Files

The X-Files: My Struggle II

The X-FilesThe 207th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Mitch Pileggi, Annabeth Gish, William B. Davis, Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) and Robbie Amell (The Tomorrow People, The Flash) guest star in the tenth season finale.

This series is not yet chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.

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Astronomy Science & Technology

The seven worlds of TRAPPIST-1

Trappist-1NASA announces the discovery, via the Spitzer Space Telescope, of a system of seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1, only 40 light years from Earth’s solar system. Though water may exist in some state on all seven of the planets, three of them are thought to be orbiting within the “Goldilocks zone” in which liquid water would be abundant, making life possible on the surfaces of those planets.

Categories
Television

The Expanse: Home

The ExpanseThe 15th episode of the science fiction series The Expanse, based on the series of novels by James S.A. Corey (a pseudonym for writers Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham), is broadcast on cable channel Syfy. Chad L. Coleman (The Orville) guest stars.

The Expanse now streaming on Amazon Prime

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Beresheet Uncrewed Spaceflight

Beresheet launched

BeresheetThe Israeli-built Beresheet uncrewed experimental lunar lander is launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Originally intended as an entrant for the Google Lunar X Prize, Beresheet (and all the other hopefuls) missed the March 31, 2018 deadline, leaving the $20,000,000 Lunar X Prize unclaimed. Unlike past lunar missions, Beresheet is launched into a high Earth orbit, whose apogee (maximum distance from Earth) will be increased over a period of nearly two months with multiple burns of the vehicle’s main engine until it coincides with the orbital distance of the moon, at which time the engine will be fired again to place it in a lunar orbit prior to landing. The lander contains digital copies of numerous documents from Earth, reflecting the builders’ Jewish heritage as well as extensive databases of knowledge from sources such as Wikipedia. As the lander itself has not been built with protective shielding of any kind, its operational lifetime is expected to last only around two days on the lunar surface. If the mission succeeds, Israel will be the fourth nation (after the United States, Soviet-era Russia, and China) to land a spacecraft on the moon.