Night Sky: How noctilucent clouds are made and Wales' space progress
Nick Edwards managed to capture the event over Newport, as the sun's rays reaching out from far below the horizon lit up tiny frozen water droplets high up in the Earth's atmosphere, creating the shimmering effect of wispy white clouds tinged with blue. Taken from the Latin for 'night-shining', we can expect further activity throughout the summer.
We have a full moon on Thursday, July 10. This particular full moon is often referred to as a 'Buck Moon' because of the emergence of antlers on a deer buck's forehead during this part of the season. In Celtic folklore, terms such as 'Mead' or 'Herb' Moon can be found, with the Anglo-Saxons referring to it as a 'Hay Moon.'
Space news and the proposed cuts to NASA's budget by the Trump administration will more than likely impact Europe's ExoMars rover mission which is already behind schedule. With the aim of placing a rover to explore the surface of Mars, it would seem the European Space Agency, (ESA), may have to go it alone.
Recently, the Snowdonia Space Centre opened its Space Test and Training Centre, (STTC), with a day of demonstrations including rocket launches and the upward despatching of a high-altitude balloon. In a move to stay competitive with the rest of the UK and indeed Europe, the day signified Wales' intent to be at the forefront of enabling those interested in having their high-tech payloads delivered into space via rockets.
It's a bold and innovative concept which is slowly gathering momentum but for those who lived during a Wales that was sustained by the coal industry and in more recent times the steel industry, a stark reminder that the shift in economic focus now lies firmly with the likes of such technology as 'microgravity manufacturing.'
Attended by Rebecca Evans, MS, Welsh Government cabinet secretary for economy, energy, and planning, the new centre has received £820,000 of funding from the UK Space Agency with Matt Archer, its launch director, also in attendance. All told, with other financial contributions, £1.3 million has been invested with a view to boost the local economy and employment opportunities.
With six other such Spaceports at sites including Argyll in western Scotland and Newquay in Cornwall, there has to be an exercise in caution following the announcement last week that the SaxaVord Spaceport in Lamba Ness, Shetlands Islands, (which appears to be further down the operational line than others), has delayed its first satellite launch from 2025 to 2026.
Finally this week, the Earth's rotation during July and August is set to speed up with Wednesday, July 9, expected to be 1.30 milliseconds shorter than the usual length of a day. The speeding up over the two months is down to several factors, including sea levels, bucking the trend that overall rotation of the Earth is slowly down.
Send your astrophotography pictures to: thenightsky@themoon.co.uk
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