Space Exploration

More than three and a half billion miles away, NASA’s New Horizons probe has woken up from its long slumber, ready to take on a new mission in the outer reaches of the solar system. New Horizons was launched with the intention of studying Pluto up close for the first …

After 20 years in space, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is nearing the end of its remarkable journey of exploration. NASA will provide live coverage, commentary, interviews and analysis: 7-8:30 a.m. EDT (4-5:30 a.m. PDT, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. GMT, 1-2:30 p.m. CEST): live commentary on NASA TV and online; an uninterrupted, clean …

A team of researchers led by Dr. Sander Goossens of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has found evidence that the crust of the Red Planet is not as dense as previously thought. The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. A new map of the thickness of the …

Today, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made its final approach to Saturn and dove into the gas giant’s atmosphere. Loss of contact with the orbiter took place at 7:55:46 a.m. EDT (4:55:46 a.m. PDT, 11:55:46 a.m. GMT, 1:55:46 p.m. CEST), with the signal received by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna complex in …

On September 15, 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will make its final approach to Saturn, but this encounter will be like no other. This time, Cassini will dive into the planet’s atmosphere, sending science data for as long as its small thrusters can keep the probe’s antenna pointed at Earth. Soon …

We’re mere days away from the end of NASA’s Cassini mission. The spacecraft has been exploring Saturn and its entourage of moons for more than a decade, but the time has come to execute the “Grand Finale.” In the early morning on Friday (September 15th), the final signals will be …

NASA’s Cassini robotic orbiter successfully made ‘goodbye kiss’ flyby of Saturn’s hazy moon Titan on September 11, 2017, at 3:04 p.m. EDT (12:04 p.m. PDT). This unprocessed image of Titan was captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its ‘goodbye kiss’ flyby of the hazy, planet-sized moon on September 11, 2017. …

NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully made its eighth flyby of the giant planet Jupiter on September 1, 2017, at 5:49p.m. EDT (2:49p.m. PDT, 21:49 UTC). This series of enhanced-color images shows Jupiter up close and personal, as Juno performed its eighth flyby of the gas giant. From left to right, the …

  Humanity has been launching probes, spacecraft, and even entire space stations into orbit around the Earth for decades, and we’re getting pretty good at it. We’re not so good at getting objects back down to Earth, though. That’s becoming a problem as more and more space junk piles up …

In a paper published in the journal Nature, Dr. Barry Mauk of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and co-authors report observations of the so-called discrete electron acceleration over Jupiter’s auroral polar regions. This image, created with data from Juno’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph, marks the path of Juno’s readings …