NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been playing a very interesting game of hide-and-seek with Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), which touched down on the lunar surface on…
Category: Space
Astronomy ‘Olympics’ is being hosted in Africa for the first time: Four big talking points
The South African Astronomical Observatory in Sutherland, in the country’s Northern Cape province. Credit: IAU General Assembly 2024 Cutting-edge telescopes, gravitational waves, black holes and our solar system’s central star,…
SpaceX knocks out company’s 50th Space Coast launch of the year
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain SpaceX shot up three Falcon 9 rockets from three launch pads last weekend once the Federal Aviation Administration gave its grounded rocket the OK to return…
Scientists pin down the origins of the moon’s tenuous atmosphere
The barely-there lunar atmosphere is likely the product of meteorite impacts over billions of years, a new study finds. While the moon lacks any breathable air, it does host a…
Scientists discuss why we might not spot solar panel technosignatures
Conceptual image of an exoplanet with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Structures on the right are orbiting solar panel arrays that harvest light from the parent star and convert it into…
Scientists pin down the origins of the moon’s tenuous atmosphere
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain While the moon lacks any breathable air, it does host a barely-there atmosphere. Since the 1980s, astronomers have observed a very thin layer of atoms bouncing…
Massive solar wind disturbance caused Earth’s magnetosphere to fly without its usual tail
A coronal mass ejection in April 2023 caused Earth to grow Alfvén wings. (This CME, with Earth illustrated to scale, took place in 2021.) Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO Like a supersonic jet…
Webb images new, cold exoplanet 12 light-years away
An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have directly imaged an exoplanet roughly 12 light-years from Earth. While there were hints that the planet existed,…
Astronomers use AI to find elusive stars ‘gobbling up’ planets
Credit: NASA, ESSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI). Astronomers have recently found hundreds of “polluted” white dwarf stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. These are white dwarfs caught actively consuming…
After debris concerns, SpaceX to shift Dragon capsule landings from Florida to California
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Evidence of debris stemming from return trips of SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has prompted the company to shift future landing operations from Florida to California. The move…
