NASA’s OSIRIS-REx successfully delivers asteroid samples back to Earth
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx seven-year mission to collect rocks and dust from a near-Earth asteroid is complete. The capsule containing the final samples returned to Earth on the morning of September 24th, touching down in the desert at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range at 10:52 am ET. The…
NASA’s James Webb Telescope may have found the source of Europa’s carbon
Before the Galileo spacecraft was destroyed two decades ago, it detected several chemicals on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, including carbon dioxide. Now, a couple of studies using observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest that the carbon dioxide on Europa’s surface came from the ocean hidden…
India launches a spacecraft to study the sun a week after landing on the moon
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to recreate India’s IT boom with space, a government official told Reuters. And the Indian Space Research Organisation’s efforts do show that the country truly is serious about wanting to be known as a major player. Just a week after Chandrayaan-3 touched down on…
Russia heads to the Moon for the first time in 47 years
Russia is heading back to the Moon as it tries to reassert itself as a significant world power in the wake of its war on Ukraine. A rocket carrying the Luna-25 craft will mark Russia’s first lunar mission since 1976. The expedition will attempt to land the exploration vehicle on…
ISS experiment will help scientists work out how to keep astronauts cool in space
On August 4th, Northrop Grumman’s 19th resupply mission for the ISS arrived on the orbiting lab, carrying not just necessities for its inhabitants, but also an experiment that could greatly benefit future human colonies outside our planet. Specifically, the mission was carrying a module with hardware that could help us…
NASA regains contact with Voyager 2 after it went dark for two weeks
NASA has reestablished connection with Voyager 2 after a tense two weeks of not hearing anything from the probe. On July 21st, the agency lost contact with Voyager 2 following a series of planned commands that mistakenly pointed it two degrees away from our planet. While it is scheduled to…
Canoo made a cute trio of EVs to carry NASA’s Artemis 2 astronauts to the SLS
Electric vehicle startup Canoo has delivered its first shipment to NASA. This week, a trio of the company’s Crew Transportation Vehicles (CTVs) arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Although they look like they’re made for exploring the surface of the Moon, the vans are designed to carry astronauts…
James Webb telescope captures the most distant active supermassive black hole yet
The James Webb space telescope has given scientists the capability to discover celestial objects they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, such as ancient galaxies that theoretically shouldn’t exist. Now, as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, researchers have discovered the most distant active supermassive black…
Europe’s Euclid space telescope launches to map the dark universe
On late Saturday morning, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft successfully lifted off Cape Canaveral, Florida. The near-infrared telescope, named after the ancient Greek mathematician who is widely considered the father of geometry, will study how dark matter and dark energy shape the universe….
NASA is creating a ChatGPT-like assistant for astronauts
Despite our intrinsic distrust of AI in space taught to us by movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey (“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave“), it offers large advantages to both manned and unmanned missions. To that end, NASA is developing a system that will allow astronauts to perform maneuvers,…