Space News & Blog Articles

Its solar panels are caked with dust and the batteries are running out of juice, but NASA’s InSight Mars lander continues to soldier forth collecting more science about the Red Planet until its very last beep. To conserve energy, InSight was projected to shut down its seismometer—its last operational science instrument—by the end of June, hoping to survive on its remaining power until December. The seismometer has been the key instrument designed to measure marsquakes, which it has been recording since it touched down on Mars in 2018, and recently recorded a 5.0-magnitude quake, the biggest yet.

There are few things in this world that brings feelings of awe and wonder more than a rocket launch. Watching a literal tower of steel slowly lift off from the ground with unspeakable power reminds us of what humanity can achieve despite our flaws, disagreements, and differences, and for the briefest of moments these magnificent spectacles are capable of bringing us all together regardless of race, creed, and religion.

NASA says it’s finished with having to do full-scale dress rehearsals for the first liftoff of its moon-bound Space Launch System rocket. But it’s not finished with having to make fixes.

Remember Mechazilla, that tall launch tower at the SpaceX Starbase in Texas that will stack Starships and “catch” spent Super Heavy boosters? SpaceX began constructing an identical launch tower at Cape Canaveral in Florida, where Starships will also be launching from soon. This tower is taking shape alongside SpaceX’s Launch Complex-39A (LC-39A) facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Once complete, the launch tower will stand about 146 meters (~480 ft) in height, making it the second-tallest space-related structure on the East Coast, second to NASA’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

The Orion Nebula is a well-known feature in the night sky and is visible in small backyard telescopes. Orion is a busy place. The region is known for active star formation and other phenomena. It’s one of the most scrutinized features in the sky, and astronomers have observed all kinds of activity there: planets forming in protoplanetary disks, stars beginning their lives of fusion inside collapsing molecular clouds, and the photoevaporative power of massive hot stars as they carve out openings in clouds of interstellar gas.

Neutron stars are dense remnants of large stars. They are the collapsed cores of stars formed during a supernova explosion. While we know generally how they form, we are still learning how they evolve, particularly when they are young. But that’s starting to change thanks to large sky surveys, which have allowed astronomers to observe a neutron star that could be little more than a decade old.

BepiColombo’s stunning close pass by Mercury on Thursday provides a prelude of what’s to come.

Tea is useful for all kinds of things, including caffeinating plenty of writers worldwide. There are also many varieties of it, some of which advocates claim to have superpowers regarding the health benefits they grant. Kombucha is one of those – originally thought to have originated in China, it has become adopted worldwide in no small part because of innumerable, dubious “health benefits” of the drink. But now, scientists did find one potential health benefit, at least to bacteria – eating kombucha culture would help them survive on Mars.

It looks like South Korea just joined the most exclusive club on the planet! With the launch of its Korea Satellite Launch Vehicle II (KSLV-II aka. the “Nuri” rocket) on June 21st, the country became the latest nation to demonstrate its ability to build and launch its own rockets to space. This was the Nuri’s second launch attempt, which took place eight months after the first attempt failed to deliver a test satellite to orbit back. This time, the rocket managed to reach space and deliver a payload of satellites, making South Korea the eleventh nation to launch from its soil and the seventh to launch commercial satellites.

SN 1054 was one of the most spectacular astronomical events of all time. The supernova explosion eventually formed what is today known as the M1 – the Crab Nebula. But in 1054 AD, the year it occurred, it was an ultrabright star in the sky and one of only eight recorded supernovae in the history of the Milky Way. However, it was only noted by half of the literate world. Primarily written about in the East, especially in China, SN 1054 was almost wholly absent from the Western record. Except, potentially, for a subtle hint at it in the most unlikely of places – some Byzantine coins.

Located in the Northern Cape of South Africa, the MeerKAT telescope consists of 64 powerful radio antennas dedicated to probing the mysteries of the Universe. This facility is a precursor to the future Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO), which will consist of MeerKAT and the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) in South Africa and the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Australia. A primary aim of the SKAO is to understand the matter content of the Universe and what mechanisms are driving its evolution and expansion.

The Universe’s giant galaxies pose a thorny problem for astronomers. The galaxies have grown large somehow, and the only things that can make a galaxy giant are probably other galaxies. So mergers must have played an important role.

The 500-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), (aka. Tianyan, “Eye of Heaven”), is the largest radio observatory in the world. Since the observatory became operational in January 2020, this facility has made significant contributions to radio astronomy and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). In particular, the observatory has been instrumental in detecting Fast Radio Burts (FRBs) and other cosmic phenomena that could be (but probably aren’t) possible indications of extraterrestrial communications.

A newly discovered supercluster of galaxies is so distant that astronomers say its light has been traveling for over twelve billion years to reach telescopes on Earth. But this cluster, named SPT2349 ?56 is gigantic, and so old that it is actually classified as a proto-cluster of galaxies, meaning it might be one of the earliest large clusters of galaxies in our Universe. It is also one of the most actively star-forming proto-clusters known.

In the decades-long search for extraterrestrial intelligence, there has never been confirmed evidence of an alien signal. There have, however, been a few tantalizing mysteries. Perhaps the greatest of these is known as the Wow Signal.

Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, started off as a beautiful, smooth red grape until someone came along, mostly peeled it, tried to smoosh it, then just gave up and walked away, leaving the poor moon to look like the absolute travesty that it is. Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly what happened, but Charon just looks like a mess and scientists want to know why. Never mind its smooshed equator, but what’s the deal with its red cap? Where did it come from and why is it red?

The earliest mention of asteroid mining might be in a story from 1898 titled “Edison’s Conquest of Mars,” by Garrett Serviss. In that story, Martians attack Earth, killing tens of thousands and destroying New York City. Earth retaliates and sends an armada to Mars. While travelling, the armada comes across an asteroid that the Martians are mining. The asteroid is a rubble pile of gold nuggets.

It’s here! The third and largest data release (DR3) from the ESA’s Gaia Observatory has officially been made public. As promised, the DR3 contains new and improved details for almost two billion stars in our galaxy, including the chemical compositions, temperatures, colors, masses, ages, and the velocities at which stars move. The release coincided with a virtual press event hosted by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) on June 13th, which featured ESA officials and guest speakers who addressed the significance of the new data.

From orbit, this landscape on Mars looks like a lacy honeycomb or a spider web. But the unusual polygon-shaped features aren’t created by Martian bees or spiders; they are actually formed from a ongoing process of seasonal change from created from water ice and carbon dioxide.

Our Moon is a fascinating world that has captivated us since time immemorial. Long before the first telescope was invented, ancient humans used the Moon as a calendar in the sky, with evidence that lunar timekeeping was around as early as 25,000, 30,000, and even 35,000 years before the present. Long before humanity had written language, lived in organized cities, and worshipped structured religions, the Moon was one of humanity’s first timepieces. It wasn’t until the telescope was invented that our Moon became an object of scientific curiosity, with the sketches by Galileo Galilei giving us a new perspective on our nearest celestial neighbor. As science advanced, so did our understanding of the Moon. While the Apollo missions were successful in teaching us about the geology of the Moon, it wasn’t until 2009 when the LCROSS impact probe onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter deliberately crashed into a dark crater on the Moon’s south pole and detected 155 kilograms of water as it flew through the ejecta plume before ultimately crashing into the lunar surface.

For nearly 30 years Geoff Notkin has traveled the world in search of meteorites, those ancient relics from outer space that have fallen to Earth. He shared his adventures on the Science Channel series “Meteorite Men,” and through lectures and appearances across almost every continent, he has sparked interest in space science and exploration. He has been a devoted meteorite hunter and collector, amassing a large collection. But now, after much deliberation, Notkin has decided to auction off some of his personal meteorite collection, as well as other personal items.