Space Exploration

  NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been in orbit of the asteroid Bennu since late 2018, and it’s almost time for the main event: collecting a sample from the surface. Researchers have used the last few years to get familiar with Bennu, and that has led to six studies that were …

  SpaceX has made history too many times to count in the last few years, but the 2018 Falcon Heavy test stands out. Not only did SpaceX ace its first heavy-lift demonstration, but it also gave us all a good laugh by launching Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster into space. …

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) mission to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu is designed to return a carbon-rich sample of the asteroid to Earth. This 500-m-diameter body was chosen as the mission target due to its spectral similarity to primitive and organic-rich carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. In …

If the atmosphere of Venus was at any point thin and similar to Earth’s, then ancient asteroid impacts transferred potentially detectable amounts of Venusian surface material to the Moon, according to new research from Yale University. Recovery and isotopic analyses of Venusian surface samples from the lunar surface would determine …

ESA Releases Solar Orbiter’s ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft, in collaboration with NASA, launched in February 2020 on its mission to study to Sun and it began collecting science data in June. Now, three of its ten instruments — the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD), the Radio and Plasma Waves (RPW) instrument, …

  In 2018, scientists working on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express project reported Mars may have a liquid water reservoir under its barren surface. The evidence was interesting but not completely convincing. Now, Mars Express has confirmed the detection of that original underground lake and discovered three more. Naturally, …

  No one expects spacetravel to be risk-free, but we’re just beginning to learn how harsh the universe can be outside our little bubble of atmosphere. A new analysis of conditions on the moon much higher levels of radiation than expected. The Chinese-German team claims the lunar surface is so …

  Humanity spent years wondering if there were planets outside our solar system, and now we know the answer: very much yes. There are thousands of exoplanets in just our little corner of the galaxy, and there’s every reason to expect the same is true of other galaxies. In fact, …

  The release of the first-ever image of a real black hole in 2019 was a watershed moment for science, but there’s still more work to do. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team is still planning future observations, but it’s also looking at old data to strengthen our understanding of …

A significant portion of some of the oldest terrain on Venus, known as tesserae, has striations consistent with layering, according to new research led by North Carolina State University. A simulated view from above Tellus Tessera, one of the regions on Venus where Byrne et al identified the presence of …