Space & Astronomy News

The asteroid Dimorphos was captured by NASA’s DART mission just two seconds before the spacecraft struck its surface on Sept. 26, 2022. Observations of the asteroid before and after impact suggest it is a loosely packed “rubble pile” object. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL After NASA’s historic Double Asteroid Redirection Test, …

U.S. and Japanese team members gather around and discuss the gamma-ray spectrometer portion of the MEGANE instrument during its development at Johns Hopkins APL. Credit: NASA/JAXA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman On March 14, NASA handed over its gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer instrument to JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) for integration onto …

This artist’s illustration shows planets orbiting a red dwarf star. Many red dwarfs have planets in their habitable zones, but red dwarf flaring might mean those zones aren’t habitable at all. New research explores the idea. Credit: NASA Even though exoplanet science has advanced significantly in the last decade or …

This Aug. 23, 1965 photo provided by NASA shows astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, near the NASA Motor Vessel Retriever in the Gulf of Mexico during training. Stafford, who commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.S.-Soviet space linkup, died Monday, March 18, 2024. He …

Locations of in situ data for four water parameters examined in this study. Credit: Journal of Remote Sensing (2024). DOI: 10.34133/remotesensing.0110 Satellite remote sensing is vital for monitoring marine and freshwater ecosystems, leveraging missions like SeaWiFS, MODIS, MERIS, Landsat, and Sentinel to track water parameters such as chlorophyll, sediment, and temperature. …

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain For nearly 50 years, NASA’s Voyager 1 mission has competed for the title of deep space’s little engine that could. Launched in 1977 along with its twin, Voyager 2, the spacecraft is now soaring more than 15 billion miles from Earth. On their journeys through the …

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The bright patches on LEDA 42160’s lower-right flank may be star-forming regions spurred on by ram pressure stripping. Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope …

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Elon Musk’s SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, Reuters reported, citing five people familiar with the program. SpaceX’s Starshield business unit is building the network as part of a $1.8 billion contract signed …

Visitors hold their hands out to receive the sun’s energy as they celebrate the Spring equinox atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico, Thursday, March 21, 2019. Spring gets its official start Tuesday, March 19, 2024, in the Northern Hemisphere. On the equinoxes, the Earth’s axis and orbit …

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Danish chef Rasmus Munk wants to take high-end cuisine to the edge of space, with plans to serve up a stratospheric dining experience in 2025, his restaurant said Thursday. “The expedition will take place aboard Space Perspective Spaceship Neptune, the world’s first carbon-neutral spaceship,” Alchemist, the …