TV News LIES

Earth will be hosting a new guest this fall.

No, it's not an alien. It's an asteroid.

The space rock, which has been named “2024 PT5,” has been traveling along its normal path around the sun, but will be temporarily pulled into Earth's gravitational orbit later this month.

The object, which is around 33 feet long, was first spotted by researchers in South Africa, who wrote about it in the journal Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society this month.

Some scientists have described 2024 PT5 as a “mini-moon.”

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The invasive joro spider has been spotted for the first time in Pennsylvania.

Six of the giant, colorful spiders, which were already spreading across north-east states including New York and New Jersey, were seen in the yard of a home in Bucks county on 5 September, according to the interactive tracking system JoroWatch. A state entomologist then visited to confirm the location and identification.

The species, Trichonephila clavata, is native to east Asia, primarily Japan. It measures up to 4in (10cm) with legs as long as 8in (20cm), and can spin large, golden webs up to 10ft (3m) wide.

The NASA astronauts who were left stranded on the International Space Station because of technical issues with their spacecraft are keeping in good spirits — even planning to vote in November — the pair revealed in a space to Earth call with the media on Friday.

“We are pushing the edges of the envelope in everything that we do. And it is not easy,” mission commander Butch Wilmore said. “It's not an easy thing to do, but that's not why we do it. Maybe we do it because it's hard.”

Suni Williams, the mission’s pilot, and Wilmore were scheduled to spend just over a week aboard the ISS when they launched into the cosmos on June 5.

It has now been 100 days. And they won't be returning home until February.

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The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded SpaceX rockets, following a failure of one of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket boosters early Wednesday morning.

The grounding comes as a crew of four astronauts waits in quarantine for the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission aboard a Falcon 9. The private flight, funded by internet entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, is set to conduct the world’s first commercial spacewalk. It had already been pushed back several days due to technical issues and weather concerns.

Neither SpaceX nor the Polaris Dawn program immediately responded to NPR's request for comment.

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NASA’s announcement Saturday that it won’t use a troubled Boeing capsule to return two stranded astronauts to Earth is a yet another setback for the struggling company, although the financial damage is likely to be less than the reputational harm.

Once a symbol of American engineering and technological prowess, Boeing has seen its reputation battered since two 737 Max airliners crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. The safety of its products came under renewed scrutiny after a panel blew out of a Max during a flight this January.

Will the crew of the Boeing Starliner soon return to Earth on the spacecraft that brought them into orbit? Or will the astronauts have no choice but to wait until February to hitch a ride on a SpaceX Dragon?

That answer may be coming soon as NASA officials appear poised to finally reveal the Starliner's fate.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is scheduled to appear for a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT Saturday from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the agency said Thursday. The news conference, which will be televised and livestreamed, will take place about one hour after Nelson will meet behind closed doors with officials at both NASA and Boeing for a flight readiness review.

A rare process in the middle of a mission, the additional review became necessary for flight engineers to determine whether the beleaguered Starliner is capable of safely returning astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams to Earth – or whether the spacecraft will have to undock with no humans aboard.

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