NASA’s Artemis II crew began Flight Day 3 on April 4 after departing Earth’s orbit earlier in the mission, preparing for their first trajectory correction burn as Orion heads toward the Moon. The four astronauts, currently nearly 100,000 miles from Earth, are also training for lunar observations scheduled during a flyby on April 6. The […]
Astronomers studying the exoplanet TOI-5205 b have found unexpected atmospheric properties that challenge existing models of planet formation. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers observed the Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a small red dwarf star and detected unusually low heavy-element content. The findings, published this week, suggest new mechanisms may shape how giant planets form […]
NASA approved the translunar injection burn for Artemis II on April 2, clearing the Orion spacecraft to leave Earth orbit at 7:49 p.m. EDT. The burn will send astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen toward the Moon for the first time since 1972. The decision follows a mission management review confirming […]
NASA’s Artemis II crew completed a proximity operations test on April 2, maneuvering the Orion spacecraft near a detached rocket stage in Earth orbit. The demonstration, lasting about 70 minutes, tested manual control systems and gathered data critical for future lunar missions. The crew now prepares for a perigee raise burn, while engineers continue troubleshooting […]
NASA confirmed the Artemis II crew completed a perigee raise maneuver on April 2, refining Orion’s orbit around Earth. A brief communications loss occurred shortly after the burn but was quickly resolved with no reported impact on crew safety. The agency will hold a press conference from Kennedy Space Center as the mission prepares for […]
Astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission completed a key proximity operations test on April 2 while orbiting Earth. The maneuver involved controlled movements around a detached rocket stage to evaluate spacecraft handling. With CubeSat deployments ahead and a minor onboard system issue under review, the crew is now preparing for a perigee raise burn to […]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched four astronauts on April 2 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Artemis II mission. The crew is set for a 10-day test flight around the Moon, marking the first human lunar flyby since the Apollo era. The mission aims to validate spacecraft systems and pave the […]
An international team led by Peking University confirmed the mass of a rogue planet for the first time using a rare alignment of telescopes in May 2024. The object, detected through microlensing, was found to be about the mass of Saturn, confirming it as a true planet. The findings, published in Science in January 2026, […]
Liquid water is said to be a necessity to life. Amazingly, however, there could be conducive conditions of life far away in an area that is not near a sun. A group of researchers working on the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at LMU and the Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has demonstrated how moons […]
Binary asteroid systems are not uncommon in our cosmic neighborhood with about 15 percent of asteroids around the Earth having small moons around them. A team of astronomers (headed by the University of Maryland) has since found that these binary asteroid systems are much more dynamic than they thought- involving active exchange of rocks and […]
Stone’s remarkable tenure on NASA’s longest-operating mission spans decades of historic discoveries and firsts. Edward Stone has retired as the project scientist for NASA’s Voyager mission a half-century after taking on the role. Stone accepted scientific leadership of the historic mission in 1972, five years before the launch of its two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Under his guidance, […]
Astronomers around the world are captivated by an unusually bright and long-lasting pulse of high-energy radiation that swept over Earth Sunday, Oct. 9. The emission came from a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the most powerful class of explosions in the universe – that ranks among the most luminous events known. On Sunday morning Eastern time, […]
On Oct. 16, at 7:04 a.m. EDT, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, the first mission to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, will skim the Earth’s atmosphere, passing a mere 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the surface. By sling-shotting past Earth on the first anniversary of its launch, Lucy will gain some of the orbital energy it needs to […]
JPL’s Venus Aerial Robotic Balloon Prototype Aces Test Flights A scaled-down version of the aerobot that could one day take to the Venusian skies successfully completed two Nevada test flights, marking a milestone for the project. The intense pressure, heat, and corrosive gases of Venus’ surface are enough to disable even the most robust spacecraft […]
Two of NASA’s Great Observatories, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, have captured views of a unique NASA experiment designed to intentionally smash a spacecraft into a small asteroid in the world’s first-ever in-space test for planetary defense. These observations of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact mark the first […]
A pair of microwave radiometers collected data on the storm as they passed over the Caribbean Sea aboard the International Space Station. Two recently launched instruments that were designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to provide forecasters data on weather over the open ocean captured images of Hurricane Ian on […]
An unexpected ‘heat wave’ of 700 degrees Celsius, extending 130,000 kilometres (10 Earth diameters) in Jupiter’s atmosphere, has been discovered. James O’Donoghue, of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), has presented the results this week at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada. Jupiter’s atmosphere, famous for its characteristic multicoloured vortices, is also unexpectedly […]
NASA will provide live coverage of key events as a NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts launch and dock to the International Space Station on Wednesday, Sept. 21. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will launch aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:54 a.m. […]
Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted the importance of climate, human spaceflight, and STEM education during the Biden-Harris Administration’s second National Space Council meeting Friday, held at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “For generations, with our allies and partners around the globe, America has led our world in the exploration and use of space,” said […]
The U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp celebrating NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most powerful, and most complex science telescope ever put in space. The stamp, which features an illustration of the observatory, will be dedicated in a ceremony Thursday, Sept. 8, at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum in Washington. “When […]