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Solar System Planets: Order of the 8 (or 9) Planets, ,

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Ever since the discovery of Pluto in 1930, kids grew up learning that the solar system has nine planets. That all changed in the late 1990s, when astronomers started arguing about whether Pluto was indeed a planet. In a highly controversial decision, the International Astronomical Union ultimately decided in 2006 to designate Pluto as a “dwarf planet,” reducing the list …

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Facebook acquires the developers of VR military simulator Onward,

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Facebook’s Oculus division has snatched up yet another popular virtual reality game developer. On Friday, the company announced it has acquired Downpour Interactive, the studio behind the hit multiplayer military simulator Onward. “We’ve seen great success with Onward on the Oculus platform for several years — first on Rift and more recently on Quest,” Mike Verdu, Facebook’s VP of AR …

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Facebook acquires the developers of VR military simulator Onward, Jay Peters

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A screenshot from Onward. | Image: Downpour Interactive Facebook’s Oculus division has snatched up yet another popular virtual reality game developer. On Friday, the company announced it has acquired Downpour Interactive, the studio behind the hit multiplayer military simulator Onward. “We’ve seen great success with Onward on the Oculus platform for several years — first on Rift and more recently …

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Facebook acquires the developers of VR military simulator Onward,

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Facebook’s Oculus division has snatched up yet another popular virtual reality game developer. On Friday, the company announced it has acquired Downpour Interactive, the studio behind the hit multiplayer military simulator Onward. “We’ve seen great success with Onward on the Oculus platform for several years — first on Rift and more recently on Quest,” Mike Verdu, Facebook’s VP of AR …

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China’s new space station will need 10 more launches to complete, ,

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China’s core space station module is now circling Earth. The module, called Tianhe (“Harmony of the Heavens”), launched Wednesday night (April 28) atop a Long March-5B Y2 carrier rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the northeastern coast of south China’s Hainan Province. Tianhe is the foundational module for China’s first space station. The module is billed as the …

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SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts will return to Earth Sunday after weather delay, ,

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NASA and SpaceX have delayed the return to Earth for four astronauts on the Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station until Sunday (May 2) due to bad weather. SpaceX’s Crew-1 Dragon capsule and its crew of four were scheduled to undock from the station today (April 30) and splashdown just before midday on Saturday (May 1). Their departure had …

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NASA suspends SpaceX’s $2.9 billion moon lander contract after rivals protest, Joey Roulette

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A digital illustration of SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander sitting on the Moon’s surface, as proposed to NASA under its Artemis program. | Image: SpaceX NASA has suspended work on SpaceX’s new $2.9 billion lunar lander contract while a federal watchdog agency adjudicates two protests over the award, the agency said Friday. Putting the Human Landing System (or HLS) work on …