{"id":65223,"date":"2026-09-02T14:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T14:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=0d0484fbee0cb6b837da03d3d7aba981"},"modified":"2026-09-02T14:26:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T14:26:24","slug":"falcon-heavy-brings-the-heat-space-photo-of-the-day-for-sept-2-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/09\/02\/falcon-heavy-brings-the-heat-space-photo-of-the-day-for-sept-2-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcon Heavy brings the heat | Space photo of the day for Sept. 2, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n
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\"plumes<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>

Fire spews from the 27 Merlin engines of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during the launch of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30, 2026. <\/span>(Image credit: SpaceX)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket can generate some serious thrust, leading to incredible displays of fireworks as seen in the photo above.<\/p>

What is it?<\/h2>

In this photo, the 27 Merlin engines of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket spew fire as they generate the thrust that sent NASA's revolutionary Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope<\/u><\/a> to orbit on a picture-perfect morning launch<\/u><\/a> on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026.<\/p>

Falcon Heavy sent Roman to a gravitationally stable parking spot known as Lagrange Point 2, located 1 million miles away (1.5 million kilometers) between Earth and Mars, where the gravitational pulls of the sun and Earth equal out.<\/p>

Once there, the Roman Space Telescope will spend a few months coming online before it begins conducting groundbreaking science, searching the universe for signs of dark energy and dark matter<\/u><\/a> and hunting for distant exoplanets<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>

Why is it incredible?<\/h2>

SpaceX only pulls out Falcon Heavy<\/u><\/a> when it needs incredible heavy-lift capability. The rocket essentially consists of three Falcon 9 rocket boosters attached to one another, whose combined 27 Merlin engines can generate over 5 million pounds (2.27 million kilograms) of thrust. That lift power enables Falcon Heavy to send large payloads to distant destinations. <\/p>

Aside from Roman, other notable Falcon Heavy missions include the 2024 launch of the Europa Clipper mission<\/u><\/a> to Jupiter's icy moon, the Psyche probe<\/u><\/a> that will investigate a metal-rich asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and most famously, a Tesla Roadster convertible<\/u><\/a> featuring a mannequin 'driver'.<\/p>\n <\/article>\n \n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An incredible launch photo captures fire spewing from a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during the launch of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":634,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2799,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-launches-amp-spacecraft","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/634"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65223"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65353,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65223\/revisions\/65353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}