Deep field. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI Launched in 2021 on Christmas Day, the James Webb Space Telescope is the most complex, precise and powerful space observatory ever built. The…
Category: Planetary Science
US space company upbeat on next Moon mission despite lander’s demise
NASA has an experimental new partnership with private industry intended to reduce costs for American taxpayers and seed a lunar economy . The head of the American space company whose lunar…
Japan becomes the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon
In this image made from live streaming released by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), a screen shows landing information as the robotic moon rover called Smart Lander for Investigating…
Laser instrument on NASA’s LRO successfully pings Indian moon lander
ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organization) Vikram lander, with a NASA retroreflector on it, touched down on the moon on Aug. 23, 2023. The camera aboard NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter)…
NASA selects a sample return mission to Venus
Graphic depiction of Sample Return from the Surface of Venus. Credit: Geoffrey Landis In Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy, the famous words “Abandon all hope, ye who enter…
Webb data suggest many early galaxies were long and thin, not disk-like or spherical
Images of what researchers believe are elongated, ellipsoid (i.e. breadstick-shaped) galaxies, captured with the James Webb Space Telescope. The word “believe” reflects the fact that some of the galaxies may…
Samples from Wild 2 comet reveal a surprising past
The Stardust sample return capsule was transported by helicopter from its landing site at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range in January 2006. This image shows the…
Big planets don’t necessarily mean big moons
Artist’s illustration of a large exomoon orbiting a large exoplanet. Credit: NASA/ESA/L. Hustak Does the size of an exomoon help determine if life could form on an exoplanet it’s orbiting?…
Research sheds new light on moon rock formation solving major puzzle in lunar geology
Image shows astronaut-geologist standing next to a huge lunar boulder during NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The scientists in this research used rock samples from this Apollo mission. Credit:…
Doomed US lunar lander’s space odyssey continues… for now
Though Astrobotic, the company that built the Peregrine robot, has said a controlled touchdown on the Moon is no longer possible — it hasn’t ruled out a so-called “hard landing”…
