As soon as the capsule touches down, OSIRIS-REx personnel will spring into action from a nearby hangar, riding four helicopters to the landing site. The first person to approach the sample capsule will be a military representative who will make sure the …
Do you want to see a brighter future for space? Anyone who lives in the United States can join The Planetary Society’s annual Day of Action in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 17 and 18, 2023. We’ll train and equip you to advocate for the importance of space …
The 5 days of Asteroid Week #AsteroidDay took place on June 30, but a single day was not enough for us! We spent a week celebrating the mysteries and missions related to understanding these tiny worlds, through social media, the web, our podcast, and video …
The English word “month,” for example, comes from the Old English “mōnath,” related to “mōna,” meaning moon — no great surprise considering the length of a month is about the length of a lunar cycle. The words “lunatic” and “lunacy” come from the Latin …
Although we aren’t treated to such exciting sights when we look up at the Moon today, we do see the aftermath of its volcanic era. The familiar face of the Moon has dark areas all over it, which scientists call plains, seas, or maria. These are made of …
CASEY DREIER: Thank you for joining me, Dr. Pace. To start with, what do you think the Artemis program has provided to the U.S. in terms of its national interests that was lacking when the Moon wasn’t the central focus of human space exploration? SCOTT …
Where exactly will Chang'e-6 land? Chang'e-6 will target a southern portion of Apollo crater, according to a paper published in Nature Astronomy in July 2023. The site was rumored to be a candidate for the Chang'e-4 mission, which landed in Von …
Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the Moon. The Indian Space Research Organization's mission successfully landed on the Moon’s southern polar region on Wednesday, making India the fourth country ever to land on the Moon. Next, a lander named Vikram …
What would a lunar impact look like from Earth? From our point of view on Earth, a large impact on the Moon would most likely be a fascinating and wondrous thing. Our spacecraft might observe and record the impact itself, and depending on the time of day …
Animals may think it’s time for bed Throughout recorded history, citizens and scientists have noticed strange animal behavior during total solar eclipses. During the 2017 total solar eclipse in Columbia, South Carolina, scientists monitored the behavior of …
Megastorms on Saturn are churning up its atmosphere. Researchers in the United States used data from the Very Large Array to look at radio emissions coming from the ringed planet and found evidence of huge storms that seem to persist for centuries. These …
Perseverance and Ingenuity are still hard at work on Mars. The Ingenuity helicopter took its 54th flight this week, snapping this image of the Perseverance rover from the air. Although Ingenuity usually takes to the air to act as a scout for the rover, …
For a terminator zone to be potentially habitable, it needs to be in orbit around the right size of star. Planets only develop tidal locking when they orbit close to their host star. Mercury is the closest thing to a tidally locked planet that we see in …
NASA has restored contact with Voyager 2. The spacecraft, which has been traveling away from Earth since 1977 and is now in interstellar space, lost contact with Earth recently after its antenna was inadvertently commanded to point in the wrong direction. …
Give a gift – of cash or stock – and multiply it through your employer’s matching gift program. Around the world, corporations, foundations and associations match their employees’ charitable donations, sometimes for as much as twice the original gift.
Did life exist on Venus in the past? Because liquid water is the key to life as we know it, if Venus had water on its surface for billions of years it’s possible that microbial life emerged during that time. We don’t know for sure, though, and looking for …
The waters of Enceladus are a tantalizing place in the search for life. Phosphorus, a key ingredient for life on Earth, has been found in the subsurface oceans of Saturn's icy moon — the first time phosphorus has been found in an ocean beyond Earth. …
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