Who You Send to the Moon Matters More Than You Think

Building a permanent base on the Moon sounds like an engineering problem. Design the habitat, sort the power supply, figure out life support, and you’re most of the way there. But the engineers who’ve spent time thinking hard about this will tell you the real challenge isn’t the hardware — it’s the humans inside it. Now researchers have built a virtual Moon base and run tens of thousands of simulated missions inside it, studying not the rocket engines or the radiation shielding, but the astronauts themselves. What they found could reshape how we plan humanity’s return to the lunar surface.

Evidence of cosmic-ray acceleration from a nearby supernova remnant

Cosmic rays seen at Earth show a wide range of particle energies, from 107 electron-volts (eV) to more than 1020 eV, the latter being about the same as the kinetic energy of a 450 gram football (soccer ball) being kicked across the pitch at about 8 meters per second. A plot of cosmic ray energies from the Milky Way galaxy often shows a fair amount of what scientists might call “structure”—interesting deviations from the underlying trend called “knees” and “ankles” that indicate new processes or methods of cosmic ray production taking place at that energy.

The Sky Today on Saturday, May 30: Fly a cosmic kite

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  May 29: Split Nu Draconis Already high in the eastern sky an hour after sunset is the constellation Boötes the Herdsman. Easy to find thanks to its brightest star, the magnitude –0.1 red giant Arcturus, the stars of this constellation form aContinue reading “The Sky Today on Saturday, May 30: Fly a cosmic kite” The post The Sky Today on Saturday, May Continue ReadingThe Sky Today on Saturday, May 30: Fly a cosmic kite

Live coverage: ULA launches 29 Amazon Leo satellites on Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 551 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the Leo Atlas 07 mission on May 29, 2026. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now United Launch Alliance overcame adverse weather conditions to launch a batch of Amazon Leo’s broadband internet satellites on its Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Friday evening. The countdown for the mission dubbed Amazon Leo 7 by Continue ReadingLive coverage: ULA launches 29 Amazon Leo satellites on Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral

MAVEN Spacecraft Finds New Plasma Squeezing at Mars

A cloaked alien invasion force is approaching Earth and coming up on Mars. The first officer looks through a viewfinder and says, “Captain, the fourth planet’s atmosphere is behaving strangely. As though it were trying to block incoming energy.” The captain takes a moment, then his (already big) eyes get wide and he exclaims, “It’s a defense shield! The Earthlings are hiding on the fourth planet and are prepared to attack us! Abort the invasion!” The first officer responds, “Aye aye, Captain!”

New Glenn explosion: what it means for Blue Origin and SpaceX

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida resumed operations Friday following the explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket during a test Thursday night. Space Launch Delta 45 (SLD 45), which manages the U.S. Space Force’s Eastern Range and oversees all East Coast rocket and missile launches, said Friday that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket deployedContinue reading “New Glenn explosion: what it means for Blue Origin and SpaceX” The post New Glenn explosion: what it means Continue ReadingNew Glenn explosion: what it means for Blue Origin and SpaceX

China’s Shenzhou 21 astronauts return to Earth after being briefly ‘stranded’, wrapping up record-breaking mission (video)

China’s Shenzhou 21 astronauts returned to Earth on Friday (May 29), wrapping up a record-breaking, and very eventful, space mission. Continue ReadingChina’s Shenzhou 21 astronauts return to Earth after being briefly ‘stranded’, wrapping up record-breaking mission (video)

FAA grounds SpaceX Starship after V3 debut

After completing what it said was a “thorough assessment,” the FAA on Wednesday ordered SpaceX to investigate anomalies that its Super Heavy booster experienced during the 12th test flight of its behemoth Starship rocket. The aviation regulator on Tuesday was ambiguous about whether an investigation would be required into Starship Flight 12, which launched Friday evening fromContinue reading “FAA grounds SpaceX Starship after V3 debut” The post FAA grounds SpaceX Starship after V3 debut appeared first on Continue ReadingFAA grounds SpaceX Starship after V3 debut

What Starship Flight 12 means for SpaceX’s IPO

Ahead of what observers anticipate will be the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, SpaceX debuted its largest rocket yet on a mostly successful mission. Though Starship and the Super Heavy booster — which combined stand more than 400 feet (122 meters) tall, nearly the length of a Boeing 777 — suffered multiple engineContinue reading “What Starship Flight 12 means for SpaceX’s IPO” The post What Starship Flight 12 means for SpaceX’s IPO appeared Continue ReadingWhat Starship Flight 12 means for SpaceX’s IPO

The Sun is Changing and We Don’t Know Why

The Sun has a heartbeat. Every eleven years it swells with magnetic fury, hurling solar flares and charged particles into space, sparking auroral displays and threatening power grids, all before quietening down again. We’ve tracked this rhythm for centuries. But now, scientists listening to sound waves deep inside our local star have found something deeply unexpected, that heartbeat is changing. And nobody yet knows what it means.

Antihydrogen mirrors hydrogen in upgraded spectrum test, narrowing cosmic mystery

University of Calgary researchers are a part of a group who just got one step closer to solving a mystery of the universe. Dr. Timothy Friesen, Ph.D., an associate professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science, and his team led a new measurement comparing the spectrum of hydrogen to its antimatter counterpart—antihydrogen.

Here’s why the failure of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is so catastrophic

Thursday night’s detonation of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket during a static-fire test produced a spectacular fireball over Florida, sending shards of the rocket flying far and wide, into the sea and across the coastal scrubland nearby. With sunrise on Friday teams from Blue Origin, the US Space Force, and NASA will be able to begin more thoroughly assessing the damage to Blue Origin’s facilities and begin picking up pieces of the rocket. pic.twitter.com/EfYn4QWW9M — Nick Johnson (@NickJohnson315) May 29, 2026 Read full article Comments Continue ReadingHere’s why the failure of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is so catastrophic

Mars’s manganese ‘bathtub ring’ reveals ancient ocean timeline and its potential for life

Past research has indicated Mars’s largest northern basin, Utopia Planitia, was once the location of a large body of water, but details surrounding when this body of water may have existed have not been resolved. Researchers have now identified a ring of minerals in the region that have helped them string together a timeline of what happened there. The new study, published in Nature Communications, provides details about the ocean’s timeline and what it says about life on Mars.