(Launch webcast begins at 9:30 p.m. BST)
Live coverage of the Atlas 5 rocket flight with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return probe from our colleagues at Spaceflight Now. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Looping back near Earth for the first time since its launch one week ago, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite fired its thrusters early Wednesday to begin boosting its orbit toward the moon for a May 17 gravity assist maneuver that will help catapult the probe into its unique science orbit.
Five bodies in our Solar System are known to bear rings — Saturn, and to a lesser extent, rings of gas and dust also encircle Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune; then Chariklo was added this haloed group last year, one of a class of minor planets called centaurs — now the progenitor of the centaurs, Chiron, most likely has rings too.
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