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Let’s Put a Sailboat on Titan
An illustration showing how a sailboat mission to Titan might land and become operational. Copyright: Estevan Guzman for Universe Today. The large moons orbiting the gas giants in our solar system have...
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China’s Lunar Test Spacecraft Takes Incredible Picture of Earth and Moon...
A unique view of the Moon and distant Earth from China’s Chang’e-5 T1 lunar test flight. Image via Xinhua News and UnmannedSpaceflight.com. The Chinese lunar test mission Chang’e 5T1 has sent back some...
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Africa’s First Mission to the Moon Announced
Africa2Moon aims to inspire young minds and innovators by being Africa’s first venture to the Moon. Credit: Foundation for Space Development Africa is home to 7 out of 10 of the world’s fastest-growing...
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Shooting “Color” in the Blackness of Space
A beautiful image of Saturn’s tiny moon Daphnis, but where is all the color? Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute If NASA is so advanced, why are their pictures in black and white? It’s a question...
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What Other Worlds Have We Landed On?
As of November 2014, these are most of the planetary, lunar and small body surfaces where humanity has done “soft landings” or lived. Click for a larger version. Composition by Mike Malaska, updated by...
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Returning the “Silent Sentinel” to Active Duty
The TLM-18 Space Telemetry Antenna Dish in Wall, NJ, “Points” to the Moon at Dusk. The Dish has Been Called “The Silent Sentinel.” [photo: Nancy J. Graziano]Situated on the south shore of New Jersey’s...
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Scientists Want ExoMars Rover to Land at Oxia Planum
Possible future Mars landing site in Oxia Planum. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. The joint ESA and Russian ExoMars rover’s top priority is to search the Martian surface for signs of life, past...
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See Daytime Views of Pluto and Charon’s Rotation
On approach in July 2015, the cameras on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured Pluto rotating over the course of a full “Pluto day.” The best available images of each side of Pluto taken during...
View ArticleSpacecraft Launches to Test the Hunt for Ripples in the Fabric of Spacetime
The European Space Agency successfully launched the LISA Pathfinder, a spacecraft designed to demonstrate technology for observing gravitational waves in space. The launch took place at Europe’s...
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Our Highest Resolution Views Yet of Pluto’s Surface
The New Horizons spacecraft has been slowly sending back all the images and data it gathered during its July flyby of the Pluto system. The latest batch of images to arrive here on Earth contains some...
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Gender Generates Biological Challenges For Long Duration Spaceflight
Men and women look exactly the same when ensconced in a space suit. But female physiology is different from male physiology in significant ways. And those differences create challenges when those...
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Launch Of World’s Largest Rocket Postponed
Next weekend's launch of the Delta-4 Heavy has been postponed. The launch, which was to take place at Cape Canaveral, has been delayed due to unspecified payload issues. The launch is for the National...
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Juno and the Deep Space Network: Bringing The Data Home
The much-anticipated arrival of NASA's Juno spacecraft at Jupiter is almost here. Juno will answer many questions about Jupiter, but at the cost of a mission profile full of challenges. One of those...
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Apollo 11 Landing 47 Years Ago; See it Through New Eyes
Looking for a way to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission landing on the Moon? Here are a few different ways look back on this historic event and take advantage of advances in...
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Europa Clipper Team Braces For Bad News
Jupiter's moon Europa is a juicy target for exploration. Beneath its surface of ice there's a warm salty, ocean. Or potentially, at least. And if Earth is our guide, wherever you find a warm, salty,...
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There It Is! Philae Lander Found
The search is over, and looking at these images, no wonder it was so hard to find the little Philae lander! The high-resolution camera on board the Rosetta spacecraft has finally spotted Philae...
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Journey’s End: Comet Crash for Rosetta Mission Finale
With a soft “awwww” from the mission team in the control center in Darmstadt, Germany, the signal from the Rosetta spacecraft faded, indicating the end of its journey. Rosetta made a controlled impact...
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President Obama Puts US All In For Mars
In the waning days of his presidency, Barack Obama has made a bold statement in favor of the US getting to Mars. Obama didn’t mince any words in his opinion piece written for CNN. He said that...
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MAVEN Takes This Trippy, Nightglowing Photo of Mars in UV
Mars’ atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than Earth’s, but there’s still a lot going on in that wispy, carbon dioxide Martian air. The MAVEN spacecraft recently took some exceptional images of Mars...
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Pure Metal Asteroid Has Mysterious Water Deposits
Water has been showing up in all sorts of unexpected places in our Solar System, such as the Moon, Mercury and Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Add one more place to the list: Asteroid 16 Psyche. This...
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