Tag Archives: thanksgiving

NASA astronaut Suni Williams reveals her Thanksgiving plans from space

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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are ready to break Thanksgiving bread in orbit.

NASA astronaut Suni Williams said she and her fellow crew members will be taking the day off to celebrate.

“I’m packing a lot of Thanksgiving-y food,” Williams said Wednesday in an interview with NBC News. “Smoked turkey, cranberries, apple cobbler, green beans and mushrooms, and mashed potatoes.”

She added that she plans to attend the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before dining with American and Russian colleagues.

Williams has been living and working on the International Space Station for almost six months. She and fellow NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore arrived at the orbiting outpost in early June as test pilots for the first manned flight of Boeing’s Starliner space capsule.

The two were scheduled to stay on the ISS for only about a week, then return to Earth on the Starliner. However, problems with the spacecraft kept them in orbit for months longer than expected. Wilmore and Williams are scheduled to return home in February in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

Starliner’s difficult mission was a dramatic, months-long story for NASA and Boeing. But Williams said she doesn’t feel like she’s “stranded” in space.

“Our control team and management always had the option of us returning home,” she said. “Yes, we came here on the Starliner. We’re coming back on the Dragon, but there was always a plan for how we were going to get home.”

In the last few weeks, NASA dodged the rumors Williams reportedly suffered from health problems while in space. Although some news articles suggested that the astronauts had lost significant weight, the agency’s medical director said on Nov. 14 that the health of Williams and others on board the space station was He said the condition was good.

Williams told NBC News that he is enjoying his time in orbit and is in good spirits.

“We feel good, we exercise and we eat properly,” she said. “We’re having a lot of fun here, too. So people are worried about us. Really, don’t worry about us.”

June 5, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Chris O’Meara / AP File

Despite problems that occurred during Starliner’s voyage (mainly thruster and helium leaks), the capsule returned to Earth without a crew on September 7th. Williams said he wished he had been able to see Starliner’s mission to completion.

She added that Boeing and NASA would not hesitate to send Starliner into space again if they ironed out the problems that arose during the test flight.

“It might not be tomorrow because we need to incorporate some of the lessons we learned,” she said. “But once we knew we were on the right path, we fixed some of the issues we had — absolutely.”

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Parts of the US may be able to see the Northern lights this Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving might bring cool and rainy weather to many parts of the country, but a solar storm could offer some Americans a chance to witness the beauty of the Northern Lights.

Thanks to a filament eruption on Monday, a mild to moderate geomagnetic storm is expected on Thursday and Friday, as the sun releases a cloud of high-energy plasma towards Earth, as reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This eruption has the potential to illuminate the night sky in the U.S. with shades of green, red, and purple over the Thanksgiving holiday.

The brightness of the aurora and how long it will be visible depends on the strength of the solar storm and whether it reaches G1 or G2 conditions, according to NOAA meteorologist Mike Betwi.

Residents in states like Washington, Montana, Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine are in prime locations to witness the Northern Lights this weekend, with those in northern parts of Idaho, Wyoming, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire also having a chance, based on NOAA’s predictions.

NOAA experts anticipate that the Northern Lights will likely be visible from Thursday evening until early Friday morning, but it’s uncertain when and where the sky will light up during the geomagnetic storm. You can monitor the latest activity and forecasts using NOAA’s Aurora Dashboard and experimental tools.

Optimal viewing conditions will be in areas with clear skies, although cloudy weather in the Northeast, much of New England, and near the Great Lakes could obstruct the view.

Unlike a previous strong solar storm earlier this year, experts do not anticipate major disruptions to communication systems in the U.S. unless the storm intensifies unexpectedly, according to Betwi.

The aurora borealis is typically visible at high altitudes, but a significant solar storm can cause it to be visible in areas much farther south than usual.

These solar storms occur when coronal mass ejections from the Sun send large plasma clouds into space, which when directed towards Earth, interact with the planet’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere, resulting in the glowing auroras.

NOAA is gearing up for the expected peak in solar activity next July, which is why the aurora has been visible further south multiple times this year.

Source: www.nbcnews.com