<keyword id="6360701" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="SpaceX" source="Orion">SpaceX</keyword> engineer <keyword id="12690875" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Anna-Menon" source="Orion">Anna Menon</keyword> will be among the crew of a unique space mission announced on Monday by US billionaire <keyword id="10689976" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jared-Isaacman" source="Orion">Jared Isaacman</keyword>, who had commanded a human spaceflight mission last year.<br /><br /><keyword id="17256" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="menon" source="Orion">Menon</keyword> is a Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX, where she manages the development of crew operations and serves in mission control as both a Mission Director and crew communicator, a SpaceX release said.<br /><br />Isaacman, the founder and CEO of American payment processing company Shift4, who had commanded the Inspiration4 mission, announced the Polaris Programme, a first-of-its-kind effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities, while continuing to raise funds and awareness for important causes here on Earth.<br /><br />The programme will consist of up to three human spaceflight missions that will demonstrate new technologies, conduct extensive research, and ultimately culminate in the first flight of SpaceX's Starship with humans on board.<br /><br />The first mission is named <keyword id="13176218" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Polaris-Dawn" source="Orion">Polaris Dawn</keyword>, which is targeted to launch no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.<br /><br />The Polaris Dawn mission has many first-time objectives, so the Polaris Programme chose a crew of experts who know each other well and have a foundation of trust they can build upon as they undergo the challenges of this mission. Menon is Mission Specialist and Medical Officer.<br /><br />In addition to Isaacman, the crew includes Menon, a veteran member of Isaacman's team Scott Poteet and SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis.<br /><br />During her tenure at SpaceX, Menon has led the implementation of Dragon's crew capabilities, helped create the crew communicator operator role, and developed critical operational responses to vehicle emergencies, such as a fire or cabin depressurisation.<br /><br />Anna served in mission control during multiple cargo and crew Dragon missions, including Demo-2, Crew-1, CRS-22, and CRS-23. Prior to SpaceX, she worked for seven years at NASA as a biomedical flight controller for the International Space Station.<br /><br />She is the wife of Indian-origin physician Anil Menon, a lieutenant colonel at the US Air Force, who was selected by NASA in December last year along with nine others to be astronauts for future missions.<br /><br />Anil Menon, 45, was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants.<br /><br />He was SpaceX's first flight surgeon, helping to launch the company's first humans to space during NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building a medical organisation to support the human system during future missions. He previously served NASA as the crew flight surgeon for various expeditions taking astronauts to the International Space Station.<br /><br />SpaceX said the Dragon mission will take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragon's maximum performance, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavouring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown.<br /><br />Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit, during which the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk, conduct scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights, and be the first crew to test Starlink laser-based communications in space, providing valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, the company said.<br /><br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/okinawa-autotech-opens-second-plant-in-india-to-manufacture-10-lakh-evs-per-year-by-2024/articleshow/89583160.cms">Okinawa Autotech opens second plant in India, to manufacture 10 lakh EVs per year by 2024</a><br /></strong><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/foldable-smartphone-shipments-to-exceed-30-million-in-2024-globally-canalys/articleshow/89583294.cms"><strong>Foldable smartphone shipments to exceed 30 million in 2024 globally: Canalys</strong></a><br />

SpaceX engineer Anna Menon to be among crew of new space mission by Jared Isaacman

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Anil Menon is a former SpaceX medical director, flight surgeon, and a newly minted NASA astronaut.</li><li>But he said his most important (and challenging) job is being a dad to his two young children.</li></ul><p>Anil Menon is one of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-hiring-resume-selection-manager-2024-3">NASA's newest astronauts</a> and former SpaceX flight surgeon, but none of that compares to, what he said, is his hardest job: being a dad.</p><p>"I would say that parenting is probably the most challenging thing that I do, because it requires so much <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/mental-health/emotional-intelligence">emotional intelligence</a>," he said.</p><p>On top of it all, his wife, Anna Menon, is a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX. She's gearing up to go to space too, as a crew member on the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-astronaut-buys-spacex-flights-plans-flight-starship-2022-2">Polaris Dawn mission</a>.</p><div type="image" title="Anil and Anna Menon hugging on the beach in their respective NASA and SpaceX astronaut jumpsuits." height="3024" width="4032" msid="108899862" hostid="261" sizebytes="1053880"></div><p>Balancing work and family life <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kim-kardashian-cries-herself-to-sleep-while-raising-her-children-2023-5">isn't easy for anyone</a>. But when both parents work in space flight, unique challenges arise like conflicting schedules and time management.</p><p>Together, Anil and Anna Menon have crafted a specific approach to parenting. Above all, they work to show their children, ages 3 and 6, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/southwest-honorary-flight-attendant-childhood-dream-viral-interview-2023-11">that it's important to follow their dreams</a> — even if those dreams are not the same as their parents'.</p><p>Here's how Anil and Anna manage their demanding careers while raising two young kids.</p><h2>Astronaut-level problem solving</h2><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">Astronauts are constantly juggling</a> a bunch of different problems under high pressure, and solving them in real time. Funnily enough, so are parents.</p><p>As a dad, Anil Menon uses his astronaut problem-solving skills all the time, he said. Especially when <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-astronaut-involutarily-sets-space-record-after-flight-home-failed-2023-9">the demands of his job present logistical challenges.</a></p><p>"When we took on these jobs, that helped tremendously with parenting," he said.</p><div type="image" title="Astronaut Anil Menon kneels inside the entrance to a space craft" height="800" width="504" msid="108899864" hostid="261" sizebytes="37738"></div><p>For example, when he was training to become a NASA astronaut in Houston, his wife was called away to LA for a month to act as mission director for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-live-spacex-launch-astronaut-crew-for-nasa-halloween-2021-10">NASA's SpaceX Crew-4 launch</a>.</p><p>Her flight simulation shifts could happen at different times of the day and last well into the night, while his NASA schedule in Houston could have very early start times.</p><p>But the couple didn't dwell on their challenging circumstances and instead focused on finding a solution together. Ultimately, they decided to have the kids stay in LA with mom for a month and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-hire-nanny-questions-ask-interview-2023-8">hired a nanny</a> to travel with them.</p><p>"We were lucky to have the extra support and the kids had fun," Anil Menon said.</p><p>This is just one example where Anil and Anna have been pulled in one direction or another. During astronaut training, Anil spent two months away from home in Florida learning <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/t-38-talon-us-air-force-trainer-jet-supersonic-sale-2023-4">how to fly a T-6 aircraft for pilot training.</a></p><p>And once Anna Menon was selected to fly on SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than this summer, both she and Anil were busy with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bezos-and-blue-origin-astronauts-are-training-for-tuesdays-space-flight-2021-7">space flight training</a>. Yet, despite the time commitment, their children are still central to their lives.</p><p>"As we've gotten closer to her launch date, and we just finished my training, along the way we've discovered ways of involving the kids in these things — bringing them closer and making that distance seem smaller," Anil Menon said.</p><p>For example, he brought his two kids, James and Grace, to his spacewalk training. And at SpaceX, the kids got to explore inside the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-cargo-dragon-sonic-boom-florida-jacksonville-splashdown-2021-10">Dragon mission capsule</a>. Plus, the couple said they love going to their kids' school to discuss their careers.</p><p>Overcoming logistical challenges like these is why Anil believes that parenting is the best astronaut training there is.</p><p>"I certainly encourage parents to apply to this new astronaut program," he said. "If they can do that, then they can be an astronaut."</p><h2>Inspiring their kids to shoot for the moon</h2><p>Their hope isn't that their kids will follow in their footsteps and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-inspires-new-generation-of-astronauts-alyssa-carson-2020-7">become astronauts themselves</a>. Rather, Anil and Anna Menon hope that by showing James and Grace how passionate they are about their careers, their kids will feel encouraged to chase their own dreams, no matter what they are. </p><div type="image" title="Anna and Anil Menon mose with their kids in front of a mountain range and open sky." height="1475" width="1967" msid="108899866" hostid="261" sizebytes="630312"></div><p>Anil applied to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-how-nasa-trains-its-astronauts-to-go-to-the-moon">NASA's astronaut program</a> several times before getting accepted. Even though he thought "it probably had a 0% chance of happening" he kept applying.</p><p>"They may not be interested in space, and they probably won't be interested," Anil Menon said with a laugh. "But hopefully they see that it's important to follow your passion. That's the model we're trying to demonstrate to them. Because you can tell kids anything, but I think actions speak louder than words."</p><p>Setting that example is what motivates Anil and Anna Menon to keep saying yes to new opportunities, even if it means learning to adapt to new challenges, Anil said.</p>

A NASA astronaut, former SpaceX flight surgeon, and father of 2 says parenting is by far his hardest job

<ul class="summary-list"><li><em>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</em></li></ul><p><strong>Happy first day of summer! </strong>With the changing of the seasons, it's worth reassessing your wardrobe. These are the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/summer-clothes-accessories-going-out-of-style-right-now-2024-6"><u>summer accessories you should ditch</u></a>. (No more cargo shorts!)</p><p>In today's big story, we're looking at why the rise of "quiet vacationing" shows <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-vacations-work-trends-culture-pto-travel-job-stress-2024-6"><u>the depressing state of America's work culture</u></a>.</p><p><strong>What's on deck:</strong></p><ul><li><strong>Markets:</strong> Private equity's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-law-firm-private-equity-investment-777-partners-2024-6"><u>push into investing in law firms is a disaster</u></a>, according to one attorney.</li><li><strong>Tech: </strong>It seems like not even the streamers <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tv-youtube-decline-worst-quarter-ever-subscribers-2024-6"><u>can save pay TV</u></a>.</li><li><strong>Business:</strong> Top MBA grads are vying for a spot in this <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alpine-investors-ceo-in-training-program-how-it-works-2024-6"><u>private-equity firm's CEO-In-Training program</u></a>.</li></ul><p>But first, I might be a bit slow to respond.</p><hr /><p><strong><em>If this was forwarded to you, </em></strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today"><strong><em><u>sign up here.</u></em></strong></a></p><hr /><h3 id="a5247352-f96b-47c0-a086-d1f0643de22a">The big story</h3><h2 id="6c5467da-7567-44dc-8904-314aaef211f0"><strong>Down-low vacation</strong></h2><div type="image" title="3d illustration of a laptop with pool items on top." height="1904" width="3809" msid="111144651" hostid="261" sizebytes="210714"></div><p><strong>Are you working today, or are you "working" today?</strong></p><p>If you're unfamiliar with the distinction, let me introduce you to a new workplace phrase: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-vacationing-millennials-taking-time-off-without-telling-boss-poll-2024-5"><u>quiet vacationing</u></a>.</p><p>The idea is to take some time off without officially informing your employer. The result is a quasi-vacation where you might shoot off emails and respond to Slack messages between drinks at the swim-up bar.</p><p>Naturally, it's a concept championed by those loveable workaholics, millennials.</p><p>Depending on your position on the workplace spectrum, that might sound like an ideal setup or the sign of a lazy worker.</p><p>But Business Insider's Emily Stewart argues <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-vacations-work-trends-culture-pto-travel-job-stress-2024-6"><u>workers feeling too stressed to fully take time off</u></a> is a sad example of America's work culture.</p><p>It's not an unfounded fear, either. One piece of research found men at a consulting firm were rewarded for giving the impression they were workaholics despite actually pulling back on work.</p><p>Either way, it's a trend that's unlikely to die down in the near term.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/work-from-home-fridays-quiet-vacationing-remote-careers-workplace-trends-2024-05"><u>As I previously wrote</u></a>, the rise of WFH Fridays is the perfect complement to quiet vacations. And summer presents plenty of opportunities for on-the-sly trips.</p><p>Look no further than July 5, the Friday after Independence Day, which is sure to have plenty of people "working."</p><div type="image" title="man sitting on beach under umbrella" height="1361" width="2000" msid="111144660" hostid="261" sizebytes="67038"></div><p><strong>Personally, I blame the hesitancy to fully unplug on one man: Wally Pipp.</strong></p><p>Pipp was the New York Yankees' first baseman, twice leading the American League in home runs and helping the Yankees win a World Series in 1923.</p><p>But, <a target="_blank" href="https://baseballhall.org/discover/inside-pitch/yankee-headache-turns-into-history"><u>as legend goes</u></a>, on June 2, 1925, Pipp asked out of the lineup due to a headache. His replacement was Lou Gehrig, who went on to play in more than 2,100 consecutive games en route to a legendary career.</p><p>Now, Pipp's name is synonymous with the risk of taking your foot off the gas. Long before "FOMO" there was fear of getting "Wally Pipped." It also makes for great fodder for LinkedIn influencers who tout the importance of #hustleharder.</p><p>And with the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/layoffs-sweeping-us-these-are-companies-making-cuts-2024"><u>threat of layoffs</u></a> ongoing, it's no wonder people might not want to be seen taking it easy.</p><p>The irony is that quiet vacationing could arguably put you in a worse position for your job these days. As companies continue their efficiency push, taking longer to do your work because you're secretly out of town might be a bigger sin than just taking time off.</p><p>Better to put in 100% effort 80% of the time than 80% effort 100% of the time, one could argue.</p><hr /><h2 id="3161f669-15b8-4700-b408-b9f5ae0aab77">3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="women in money wave" height="500" width="1000" msid="111144661" hostid="261" sizebytes="54868"></div><ol><li><strong>How dreams of upending the legal industry with private equity became a nightmare. </strong>Arizona permitting non-lawyers to invest in law firms created what trial lawyer Steve German initially saw as a "revolutionary" opportunity "to do good." But his partnership with Miami investment firm 777 Partners quickly soured, and now <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-law-firm-private-equity-investment-777-partners-2024-6"><u>German is a vocal critic of Arizona's hands-off approach</u></a>.</li><li><strong>The cost of delaying rates could be fatal for the economy. </strong>Famed economist Mohamed El-Erian warned the Federal Reserve's higher-for-longer approach to interest rates is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/next-recession-cause-fed-interest-rate-cuts-delay-el-erian-2024-6"><u>creating and deepening vulnerabilities in the economy</u></a>. As it stands, he sees the recession risk at 35%.</li><li><strong>Russia's largest private bank is expanding to China. </strong>Alfa Bank PJSC is applying to build new offices in Beijing and Shanghai after being hit by US sanctions. The move is a nod to Russia and China's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-china-trade-partnership-us-sanctions-alfa-bank-beijing-moscow-2024-6?miRedirects=1"><u>increasingly intertwined, "no-limits" partnership</u></a>.</li></ol><hr /><h2 id="fa1e44d3-a805-4b93-a9ce-9f619f9902a6"><strong>3 things in tech</strong></h2><div type="image" title="3 tvs stacked on to each other" height="1500" width="2000" msid="111144657" hostid="261" sizebytes="99278"></div><ol><li><strong>Pay TV is falling fast.</strong> Pay-TV subscriptions have been declining for years, but the start of the year ushered in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tv-youtube-decline-worst-quarter-ever-subscribers-2024-6"><u>the worst quarter in pay-TV's history</u></a>. Even digital pay-TV subscriptions like YouTube TV, which were <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-tv-fourth-biggest-pay-tv-cable-broadband-bundle-google-2024-2"><u>once promising</u></a>, are starting to falter.</li><li><strong>Some Amazon employees were fuming over a private Foo Fighters concert for senior leaders. </strong>Internal<strong> </strong>Slack messages viewed by BI show Amazon employees slamming the company for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/employees-slam-amazon-for-private-foo-fighters-show-for-leaders-2024-6"><u>the concert, which was just for director- and vice president-level employees</u></a>. "Meanwhile, there's no budget for a monthly happy hour on our team," one employee wrote.</li><li><strong>Businesses' embrace of generative AI is about to get messy. </strong>A vast majority of US companies are adopting generative AI tools — and at an unusually fast pace, according to a survey from Bain &amp; Company. Now, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-using-ai-bain-survey-roi-2024-6"><u>they actually have to make money</u></a> from these big investments.</li></ol><hr /><h2 id="5a4b1189-daf2-43f7-8f75-8e00d47f0145"><strong>3 things in business</strong></h2><div type="image" title="man half red and half blue" height="693" width="1300" msid="111144653" hostid="261" sizebytes="67526"></div><ol><li><strong>How to grow a CEO</strong>. One private-equity firm has a training program that promises to pipeline MBA grads into CEO roles at their portfolio companies. Described by one alum as "turbocharged entrepreneurship," <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alpine-investors-ceo-in-training-program-how-it-works-2024-6"><u>it's harder to get into than Harvard</u></a>.</li><li><strong>For TV companies, the cost of sports might be Hollywood</strong>. Media companies are shelling out billions to vie for sports broadcasting rights, which have never been more important for viewership. They've also never been more expensive. That high price tag could <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rising-sports-cost-is-threat-to-hollywood-tv-budgets-2024-6"><u>spell disaster for Hollywood</u></a> as media execs pull funding from entertainment budgets to cover costs.</li><li><strong>Dell workers are rejecting RTO. </strong>Almost half of the company's full-time US workforce have rejected its return-to-office push, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-dell-workers-reject-return-to-office-hybrid-work-2024-6"><u>data seen by BI shows</u></a> — and those workers are ineligible for promotion if they stay remote. BI spoke with 11 Dell employees on why they made that choice.</li></ol><hr /><h2 id="62732d8e-0646-4a80-af8c-013deb0fc5a2"><strong>In other news</strong></h2><ul><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/egg-freezing-fertility-clinics-targeting-gen-z-women-high-cost-2024-6"><u>The egg-freezing industry's shady sales pitch</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-advantage-amazon-desperation-for-gpu-chips-2024-6"><u>Nvidia is throwing its weight around — and even Amazon is bowing down</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/digital-advertisers-are-debating-what-counts-as-premium-content-2024-6"><u>Digital advertisers want "premium content" — but are in a battle over how to define it</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-intelligence-ai-not-available-older-iphones-2024-6"><u>Apple exec explains why you wouldn't want to run Apple Intelligence on your older iPhone</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-fills-out-xai-former-tesla-staffers-after-layoffs-2024-6"><u>There's a pipeline of former Tesla staffers to Elon Musk's shiny new startup xAI</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fewer-microsoft-employees-getting-good-deal-internal-survey-2024-6"><u>Fewer Microsoft employees think they're getting a 'good deal,' internal survey shows</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/caitlin-clark-is-a-rorschach-test-for-sports-media-2024-6"><u>The Caitlin Clark culture war sums up our garbage treatment of female athletes</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-traffic-surges-from-google-search-2024-6"><u>The curious case of Reddit's surging traffic</u></a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/highest-paid-us-ceos-compensation-packages-stock-awards-2024-5"><u>Here are the highest-paid CEOs in the US, some of whom have 9-figure compensation packages</u></a>.</li></ul><hr /><h2 id="8bb1d154-eea9-453e-ab66-008cd0361048"><strong>What's happening today</strong></h2><ul><li>The summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the official start of summer, is today. Enjoy the extra sunlight!</li><li>SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission launches.</li></ul><hr /><p><strong>The Insider Today team: </strong>Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. George Glover, reporter, in London. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.</p>

'Quiet vacationing' shows how sad America's work culture has become

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Astronomers recently discovered a green comet approaching Earth for the first time in 50,000 years.</li><li>Here's how, where, and when to see Comet ZTF as it passes Earth in late January and early February.</li></ul><p>We could be the last humans to ever see the green comet hurtling past Earth from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-will-voyager-1-2-probes-see-next-nasa">outer reaches of the solar system</a> in late January and early February.</p><p>C/2022 E3 (ZTF), or Comet ZTF for short — the name astronomers gave this space snowball after the Zwicky Transient Facility discovered it in March — hasn't been in our cosmic neighborhood since the last Ice Age.</p><p><a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?postID=63bf0d283295302a7e6344b3&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fgo.skimresources.com%2F%3Fid%3D35871X1550380%26isjs%3D1%26jv%3D15.3.0-stackpath%26sref%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.insider.com%252Fgreen-comet-to-pass-earth-for-the-first-time-since-the-stone-age-2023-1%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.haus-der-astronomie.de%252Fperson%252F26477%252F4111658%26xs%3D1%26xtz%3D480%26xuuid%3Da0189b8ffd4fe1f73f05df7860e65c2c%26abp%3D1%26xjsf%3Dother_click__contextmenu%2520%255B2%255D">Researchers</a> <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?postID=63bf0d283295302a7e6344b3&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fgo.skimresources.com%2F%3Fid%3D35871X1550380%26isjs%3D1%26jv%3D15.3.0-stackpath%26sref%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.insider.com%252Fgreen-comet-to-pass-earth-for-the-first-time-since-the-stone-age-2023-1%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fnews.virginia.edu%252Fcontent%252Fqa-comet-cometh-will-it-dazzle-or-be-dud-what-you-need-know%26xs%3D1%26xtz%3D480%26xuuid%3Da0189b8ffd4fe1f73f05df7860e65c2c%26abp%3D1%26xjsf%3Dother_click__contextmenu%2520%255B2%255D">calculated</a> that the icy ball of gas, dust, and rock orbits the sun roughly ever 50,000 years, which means that Neanderthals were still walking the Earth and humans had just migrated out of Africa for the first time when the comet last whizzed by.</p><p>With no telescopes or binoculars, those ancient peoples may not have spotted the comet at all. And there may never be an opportunity to see it again.</p><p>"Some predictions suggest that the orbit of this comet is so eccentric it's no longer in an orbit — so it's not going to return at all and will just keep going," Jessica Lee, an astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich, told <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/once-lifetime-cosmic-event-could-visible-naked-eye-1770383" rel=" nofollow">Newsweek</a>.</p><p>So it might be worth the effort to look for Comet ZTF and become one of the few humans to ever see it up close. Here's what you need to know to maximize your chances.</p><h2>When to see the green comet</h2><div type="image" title="Man stargazing with a telescope" height="1132" width="1509" msid="97107194" hostid="261"></div><p>In the Northern Hemisphere, the green comet was visible just before dawn in late January, according to <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/whats-up-january-2023">NASA</a>. Amateur astronomers took <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/green-comet-ztf-what-look-like-see-photos-2023-1">photographs of the green comet to show what you could see</a>.</p><p>A completely shaded new moon provided ideal dark skies for spying the comet on January 21.</p><p>If you missed that, your last, best chance to see the comet in the Northern Hemisphere was on and around Monday, January 30, when ZTF was between the end of the Big Dipper and Polaris, the North Star.</p><p>Then on early February 1 and February 2, the comet will be visible in the Southern Hemisphere, when it makes its closest pass by Earth since the stone age at around 26 million miles away, according to <a href="https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/new-comet-might-get-bright-enough-for-binoculars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EarthSky</a>. That's nearly 109 times the average distance of the moon, but the comet is burning so bright that it could still be visible in the night sky.</p><p>The comet is expected to be brightest on January 31 and February 1, though the moon will be bright and the comet will be "the faintest an object can be seen without optical aid in a very clear, very dark sky," according to the <a href="https://www.adlerplanetarium.org/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-green-comet-aka-comet-c-2022-e3-ztf/">Adler Planetarium</a>.</p><p>It's important to set yourself up for success if you're trying to spot it.</p><h2>How to spot the green comet</h2><p>At first, spotting Comet ZTF may require a telescope, but as it approaches Earth, viewers may be able to see it with binoculars, or even the naked eye.</p><p>"Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current trend in brightness, it'll be easy to spot with binoculars, and it's just possible it could become visible to the unaided eye under dark skies," NASA wrote in an update on December 29.</p><p>For the best viewing, choose a cloudless night and get yourself far from city lights, to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-dark-skies-look-like-how-many-more-stars-than-cities-suburbs">darkest skies possible</a>. When the moon is dim, or at least when it's below the horizon, the sky will be even darker.</p><p>If you're near an urban area, you may want to bring binoculars or even a telescope, in case the lights drown out the comet to the naked eye.</p><h2>Where to look in the night sky for comet ZTF</h2><p>Look to the right stars to see the green comet. According to <a href="https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/new-comet-might-get-bright-enough-for-binoculars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EarthSky.org</a>, the comet will pass below <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1944/what-is-the-north-star-and-how-do-you-find-it/">Polaris</a> — the North Star at the tip of the Little Dipper — and will be visible in the star's vicinity on January 30. It will appear earlier in the evening as it approaches Polaris.</p><p>"It will distinguish itself probably from other stars because it will look a little bit fuzzy compared to other stars," Thomas Prince, director of the WM Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech, told <a href="https://www.foxweather.com/earth-space/new-comet-visible-earth-50000-year-event">FOX Weather</a>.</p><p>In the Southern Hemisphere, on February 10, the comet will be about 1.5 degrees from Mars, according to Prince. That's about the width of your pinky finger when you hold it at arms length. If you can locate Mars shining bright in the sky, look just around it for the comet.</p><p>EarthSky publishes <a href="https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/new-comet-might-get-bright-enough-for-binoculars/">maps</a> to help you locate the reference objects — Hercules, Polaris, and Mars — in the night sky.</p><h2>Why the comet is green</h2><p>The comet has a "greenish coma, short broad dust tail, and long faint ion tail," according to NASA.</p><p>Many comets glow green. Laboratory <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2113315118" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">research</a> has <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/why-do-some-comets-glow-green" rel=" nofollow">linked this aura</a> to a reactive molecule called dicarbon, which emits green light as sunlight decays it.</p><p>Dicarbon is common in comets, but it's not usually found in their tails.</p><p>That's why the coma — the haze surrounding the ball of frozen gas, dust, and rock at the center of a comet — is glowing green, while the tail remains white.</p>

We could be the last humans to see the green comet passing Earth for the first time since the Ice Age. Here's how, where, and when to watch it.

<p>Human-induced warming is sending Earth into frightening and uncharted climate territory - but humans are not the first force to cause colossal changes to our climate.</p>
<p>Other celestial bodies, including planets, tug at Earth causing it to move in ways that affect our ice caps in history-shaping ways, as discussed by narrator and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on Sunday's <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/630892">Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey</a>.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=536a6f9becad04e028b1a77e" border="0" alt="axal tilt.gif" title="axal tilt.gif" /><p class="source"><span>GIF From Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, The Lost Worlds Of Planet Earth</span></p><p class="caption">Earth's axis is constantly changing.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>For example, the pull of the planets influences Earth's tilt. They cause Earth's axis to wobble in a circular motion similar to the spin of a top. You can can see these movements in the Cosmos GIF to the left.</p>
<p>If you could stick a pen out of Earth's north pole, it would draw a circle about every 26,000 years. In 14,000 AD for example, our north star was not Polaris, as it is now, but Vega. In 12,000 years , Vega will be our north star again.</p>
<p>The pull of the planets also cause the Earth's tilt to change between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees over 41,000 years. When our tilt is more extreme, seasons can be more severe, with <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html">warmer summers and cooler winters</a>. When the tilt is less, we get cooler summers and milder winters. Currently our tilt is about 23.4 degrees - near the middle.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/536d275169bedde43f3e69c1-1024-683/wobble%20and%20tilt.jpg" border="0" alt="Wobble and Tilt" /><p class="source"><span>NASA and Mysid</span></p><p class="caption">In addition to Earth's rotation about its own axis, Earth wobbles like a top (left) and changes it's tilt (right) in response to the gravitational pull of other celestial bodies.</p></div><p></p></div></div>In the GIF below, you can see another effect of planetary pull. Earth's orbit is not round, but slightly egg-shaped or eccentric.</p>
<p>"The shape of the Earth's orbit changes from being elliptical (high eccentricity) to being nearly circular (low eccentricity) in a cycle that takes between 90,000 and 100,000 years," according to <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_2.php">NASA's Earth Observatory</a>.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=536a720169bedd6739d1b084" border="0" alt="eccentricity.gif" title="eccentricity.gif" width="591" height="330" style="color: #000000; font-size: 15px;" /><p class="source"><span>GIF From Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, The Lost Worlds Of Planet Earth</span></p><p class="caption">The Earth's eccentric and unsymmetrical orbit.</p></div><p></p></div>Currently, Earth is at its closest to the sun at the beginning of January when it is about 91.5 million miles away and at its furthest in July when it is about 94 million miles away. This corresponds to about a 6% difference in how much solar radiation the Earth receives.</p>
<h3>Earth, planetary pull, and ice ages</h3>
<p>During a highly elliptical orbit, the Earth would receive 20 to 30% higher sunlight intensity between its closest and furthest passes by Earth, "resulting in a substantially different climate from what we experience today," according to NASA.</p>
<p>The pull of every celestial body combines to create Earth's eccentricity, wobble, and tilt. These movements determine how our planet is positioned to receive sunlight and how much sunlight it can receive. Which of these is the dominant determiner of ice ages, however, is still not completely understood.</p>
<p>"There is still some discussion about how exactly this starts and ends ice ages, but many studies suggest that the amount of summer sunshine on northern continents is crucial: if it drops below a critical value, snow from the past winter does not melt away in summer and an ice sheet starts to grow as more and more snow accumulates," said the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=ice+ages+IPCC+2014&amp;oq=ice+ages+IPCC+2014&amp;aqs=chrome..69i57.4223j0j7&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;es_sm=91&amp;ie=UTF-8">Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change in their 2007 report</a>.</p>
<p>One glacial period, or lack thereof, was particularly significant to human history: Fifteen to twenty-five thousand years ago, the northern ice cap shrunk, revealing a land bridge that our ancestors would use to cross from Eurasia into North America.</p>
<h3>How ice forms civilizations</h3>
<p>When Earth's northern region is ill-positioned to bathe in the sun's rays, the top third of the world becomes entombed in ice. You can see the northern polar ice cap expand all the way down over California and consume the better part of North America: <div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=536a74c76da8117d6cb11604" border="0" alt="ice age takeover.gif" title="ice age takeover.gif" width="591" height="330" /><p class="source"><span>GIF From Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, The Lost Worlds Of Planet Earth</span></p></div><p></p></div> When the ice grows, it siphons water from the sea, lowering sea levels 400 feet, said deGrasse Tyson. This exposes more land in coastal regions.</p>
<p>When Earth is at a prime angle for sunbathing, this ice thaws and sea levels rise. When Earth thawed about 15,000 to 25,000 years ago, receding ice exposed a land bridge connecting Eurasia and North America. This bridge would later be humanities route into North America. <div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=536a7bf26da8118818b11604" border="0" alt="ice retreat-1.gif" title="ice retreat-1.gif" width="591" height="330" /><p class="source"><span>GIF From Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, The Lost Worlds Of Planet Earth</span></p></div><p></p></div>Roughly 10,000 years ago, "the manic swings of the climate and sea levels," subsided, said Tyson, "a new and gentler climate age began."</p>
<p>We entered an interglacial period that we still live in, "one of those balmy intermissions in an ice age," he said. Rivers transported fertile sediments into deltas, where some humans made their homes.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=536a80f9eab8eab95df20655" border="0" alt="river delta.gif" title="river delta.gif" width="591" height="330" /><p class="source"><span>GIF From Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, The Lost Worlds Of Planet Earth</span></p></div><p></p></div> Once solely wanderers, humans had time and resources in this interglacial period to settle and build the civilizations at the dawn of our history.</p>
<p>"The way the planets tug at each other, the way the skin of the earth moves, the way those motions affect climate, and the evolution of life and intelligence, they all combined to give us the means to turn the mud of those river deltas into the first civilizations," said Tyson.</p>
<p>Now go enjoy the beautiful interglacial period. You've only got about another 50,000 years. That is, if we don't throw it all out of wack with our greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p><em>GIFs from <a href="http://www.cosmosontv.com/">Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, The Lost Worlds Of Planet Earth</a>. Watch the full episode <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/630892">here.</a></em></p>

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