The Lyrid meteor shower peaks in the early hours of April 22, offering up a possible feast of impressive shooting stars and the occasional fireball. Continue ReadingDon’t miss the Lyrid meteor shower 2026 peak tonight! Viewing times, location and tips
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found a diverse mix of organic molecules on Mars, including chemicals considered building blocks for the origin of life on Earth. Continue ReadingNASA’s Curiosity rover finds building blocks of life on Mars. Scientists aren’t sure how they got there
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has uncovered a diverse mix of organic molecules on Mars, including chemicals widely considered building blocks for the origin of life on Earth.
The moon itself does not wax and wane as frequently as American public opinion on its space program. The Artemis 2 astronauts barely gulped their first taste of fresh Pacific air before a chorus of voices began criticizing the Artemis program as a waste of money for which the American people received little in return. […] The post In the wake of Artemis 2, America needs to consider the ‘why’ of its government space program appeared first on SpaceNews.
Officials say civil-military overlap with NASA grows as lunar activity accelerates The post Space Force sets up ‘cislunar coordination’ office to focus beyond Earth orbit appeared first on SpaceNews.
Latvia is the latest country to sign the Artemis Accords as part of a new push to use the Accords to foster cooperation on NASA’s lunar exploration ambitions. The post Latvia joins the Artemis Accords appeared first on SpaceNews.
The decision to terminate RTX’s contract for the next-generation GPS ground system follows testing failures and years of cost growth The post Pentagon officially ends OCX program, citing risk and delays appeared first on SpaceNews.
New spacesuits for Artemis lunar missions and the International Space Station may not be ready until after the end of the decade, a report by NASA’s inspector general warns. The post Artemis spacesuit development risks further delays appeared first on SpaceNews.
The Pentagon has canceled a ground control system for the US military’s GPS satellite navigation network after the program’s enduring problems “proved insurmountable,” the US Space Force announced in a press release Monday. The Global Positioning System Next-Generation Operational Control System, known by the acronym OCX, was officially canceled by Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s defense acquisition executive, on Friday, April 17, the Space Force said. The decision to terminate the OCX program ends a 16-year, multibillion-dollar Continue ReadingPentagon pulls the plug on one of the military’s most troubled space programs
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in the vertical launch position at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ahead of the launch of the GPS III-8 mission for the U.S. Space Force. Image: SpaceX The U.S. Space Force is set to launch its final Global Positioning System (GPS) III satellite into medium Earth orbit in the predawn hours of Tuesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff from pad 40 Continue ReadingLive coverage: SpaceX to launch final GPS III satellite for the U.S. Space Force
Using the eROSITA space telescope, MPE researchers have successfully isolated the X-ray glow from our Solar System, revealing its impact on the soft X-ray sky. The findings, published in Science, underscore the importance of considering Solar System processes when analyzing X-ray data and highlight eROSITA’s role in advancing not only astrophysics but also heliophysics.
The Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, run by the Institute of Ancient Near East Studies (IPOA) at the University of Barcelona and led by Maite Mascort and Esther Pons, has identified a papyrus containing a fragment of Homer’s “Iliad” inside a Roman-era tomb dating to approximately 1,600 years ago, in the Egyptian town of Al Bahnasa, ancient Oxyrhynchus. The discovery is exceptional: it is the first time in the history of archaeology that a Greek literary text has been found deliberately incorporated into the mummification process.
The sun continuously blasts charged, magnetic field-carrying particles, or plasma, in all directions. This solar wind interacts with the magnetic fields and atmospheres of several of our solar system’s planets and other bodies, sculpting long magnetic tails of charged particles—magnetotails—that stretch into space behind them.
The cosmological constant is the mathematical description of the energy that drives the ever-accelerating expansion of the cosmos. It’s also the source of one of the most enduring and confounding problems in modern physics.
NASA engineers have shut down another instrument on Voyager 1 to preserve the power of the most distant spacecraft ever sent into space. Continue ReadingNASA shuts down Voyager 1 instrument to keep probe exploring interstellar space
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 25 Starlink satellites lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Station in California on April 19. The mission featured the 600th landing of a Falcon first stage. Continue Reading600 rocket landings! SpaceX notches another milestone during Sunday Starlink launch
Water is critical to life because cells need liquid to function. That’s why scientists focus on finding and studying exoplanets in habitable zones. But even if they’re in habitable zones, exoplanets need lots of water to support their carbon cycles. So without water, exoplanets become inhospitable greenhouse planets, regardless if they’re in habitable zones or not.
A huge geological structure on Mars resembling a bathtub ring may be evidence of an ocean that once covered a third of the Red Planet. Continue ReadingScientists found a ‘bathtub ring’ on Mars. Could it be evidence of an ancient Red Planet ocean?
If you walk across the open yard in front of the Physics, Math and Astronomy building at the University of Texas at Austin, you’ll see a 17-story tower and a huge L-shaped building. What you won’t see is what’s underneath you. Two floors below ground, behind heavy double doors stamped with a logo that most students have never noticed, sits one of the most powerful lasers in the United States.
This shimmering region of star-formation, a close-up of the Trifid Nebula about 5,000 light-years from Earth, was captured in intricate detail by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The colors in Hubble’s visible light image, which marks the 36th anniversary of the mission’s launch on April 24, are reminiscent of an underwater scene filled with fine-grained sediments fluttering through the ocean’s depths.
