ESA is Considering a Mission to Enceladus
There are plenty of exciting places in the solar system to explore. But few are more interesting than Saturn's moon…
How do you Keep a Solar Sail Stable?
Solar sailing seems like a simple concept - instead of being pushed along by the wind, as in a typical…
You Can Help Measure Light Pollution with Your Phone
There's no question that light pollution is a growing problem. Thankfully many scientists and advocates are working for change. And…
Scientists Piece Together the Shoreline of an Ancient Ocean on Mars
Scientists have long suspected that Mars was once warm and wet in its ancient past. The Mars Ocean Hypothesis says…
The Moon had Volcanoes More Recently Than Previously Believed
Recent analysis of the samples returned by the Chang'e-5 mission reveal that volcanic activity on the Moon lasted longer than…
25 More Years for Webb, LUVOIR and Quantum Telescopes
What's the current state of James Webb? What were the main technical difficulties and what does the future look like?…
The International Space Station Gets a Clean Bill of Health. Despite a Few Opportunistic Microbes, the Station is “Safe” for Astronauts
In a recent study published in Microbiome, a team of researchers led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted a five-year…
NASA’s new Glider Could Turn any Airport Into a Spaceport
Getting to space has almost always been a multi-stage process. Those stages typically took the form of different stages of…
Navigation Satellites fly at 23,000 km Altitude. Europe Wants to Build a Constellation That Flies Much, Much Lower
Distances to different orbits can be hard to understand. For example, the ISS sits around 400 kilometers from Earth, whereas…
ESO Finds the Ghostly Image of a Dying Star
Astronomical images never cease to delight, and the European Southern Observatory's image of the Vela nebula is no exception. (more…)