An artist’s impression of a Polaris Dawn astronaut flowing just outside the Crew Dragon capsule in the first commercial spacewalk. Graphic: SpaceX
Billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX crew trainer Sarah Gillis prepared to open the forward hatch of their Polaris Dawn spacecraft early Thursday to take turns floating outside in the first non-government spacewalk in the history of space exploration.
Jupiter’s moon, Io, is the most volcanic body in the Solar System. NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been getting closer and closer to Io in the last couple of years, giving us our first close-up images of the moon in 25 years.
Although stars are enormous, they’re extremely far away, and appear as point sources in telescopes. Usually, you never get to see more than a pixel. Now astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to resolve details on the surface of the star R Doradus and track its activity for 30 days. The images revealed giant, hot bubbles of gas 75 times larger than the entire Sun. R Doradus is 350 times larger than our Sun, but only 180 light-years away.
Mars is known for its unique geological features. Olympus Mons is a massive shield volcano 2.5 times taller than Mt. Everest. Hellas Planitia is the largest visible impact crater in the Solar System. However, Mars’ most striking feature is Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System.
SpaceX's Polaris Dawn astronaut mission plans to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk early Thursday morning (Sept. 12), and you can watch the historic action live.
Ask any property inspector, and they’ll tell you one of the maxims of their profession – where there’s moisture, there’s mold. That relationship also holds true for the International Space Station. The interior climate on the ISS is carefully controlled, but if thrown out of whack, potentially dangerous mold could sprout overnight. A new paper by researchers at The Ohio State University explains why – and provides some insights into how we might prevent it if it does happen.
NASA's most distant spacecraft had a critical thruster problem far from home. Fixing it required a long-distance call to overcome extreme cold and dwindling power.
Researchers have spotted a huge new active volcano on Jupiter's moon Io by comparing images taken by two NASA missions more than a quarter of a century apart.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft delivered NASA astronaut Don Pettit and two cosmonauts to the International Space Station today (Sept. 11), just three hours after lifting off.
The European Space Agency's Salsa satellite safely deorbited on Sunday (Sept. 8) over a hand-picked region of the South Pacific Ocean.
Three people launched toward the ISS today (Sept. 11) aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, bringing the total number of people in Earth orbit to 19 — a new record.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is regularly plagued by the fact that humanity has a very limited perspective on civilization and the nature of intelligence itself. When it comes right down to it, the only examples we have to go on are “life as we know it” (aka. Earth organisms) and human civilization. On top of that, given the age of the Universe and the time life has had to evolve on other planets, it is a foregone conclusion that any advanced life in our galaxy would be older than humanity. Luckily, this presents an opportunity to develop and test theoretical frameworks in the field.
Astronomers can see hot gas boiling on the surface of the giant star R Doradus, 180 light-years away.
September's partial lunar eclipse will be the first and only time the Moon ducks into Earth's umbral shadow in 2024. The Moon also occults Saturn and hides members of the Pleiades this month.
SpaceX has given us a detailed look at their stylish and innovative new extravehicular activity suit ahead of it being worn during the Polaris Dawn mission's first-ever private spacewalk.
SpaceX's historic Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission carried a variety of NASA experiments to orbit. Here's a quick look at the research and its goals.
It's unlike any Lego space shuttle we've had before, but the upcoming 'Over the Moon' set is certainly eye catching.
The cause of mysterious methane spikes on Mars may be a strange form of alien life — or it may just be interesting chemistry. Either way, something odd is happening on the Red Planet.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit is seen in quarantine, behind glass, during a press conference, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024 a the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Expedition 72 crew members: NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft on September 11. Photo Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls
An astronaut and avid photographer is heading back to space for a fourth time on Wednesday. NASA astronaut Don Pettit, first ventured to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 6 in November 2003 and last returned from a trip to the orbiting outpost on July 1, 2012.
Was Ceres born in the main asteroid belt, or did it migrate there from the outer solar system? The answer is buried in data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft.
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Watch the second episode of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission – Europe’s ambitious exploration journey to search for past and present signs of life on Mars.
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