How do you get an atmosphere at a world that doesn’t have one and can’t keep one? If it’s the Moon, you simply bombard it for millions of years with tiny meteorites. Also, let it sit in the solar wind and see what happens. Both space-weathering processes create a thin “exosphere” just above the lunar surface.
Space News & Blog Articles
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Live coverage: NASA to discuss ISS schedule shuffle amid SpaceX Crew-9 launch delay, Boeing Starliner questions
NASA officials aim to add context to some of its recent changes to the manifest of the International Space Station. It will host a media teleconference on Wednesday, Aug. 7, to discuss the timelines of the SpaceX Crew-9 launch, the Crew-8 return to Earth and the impacts to the schedule from the ongoing Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test.
How a Black Hole Could Eat a Neutron Star from the Inside Out
Primordial black holes are thought to have formed early in the evolution of the universe. None have been discovered yet but if they do exist and they may be plentiful, drifting almost invisibly through the cosmos, then they might account for dark matter. One possible way to search for them is to see the results of their meals and a bizarre new theory suggests low mass black holes could be captured by neutron stars and become trapped inside, devouring them from within. If these strange objects existed then it would make neutron stars less common in locations where black holes would proliferate as observed around Galactic centre.
Take a trip to Mars’s largest lake
Mars once hosted a lake larger than any on Earth. The broken-down and dried-up remnants of this ancient lakebed are shown here in amazing detail by ESA’s Mars Express.
If Advanced Civilizations Using Quantum Communications, Is That Why We’ve Never Seen Them?
Establishing communication with an alien intelligence is one of the news items I, and I’m sure many others, long to see. Since we have started the search for advanced civilisations we have tried numerous ways to detect their transmissions but to date, unsuccessfully. A new paper suggests quantum communication may be the ideal method for interstellar communication. It has many benefits but the challenge is that it would require a receiver over 100km across to pick up a signal. Alas they know we don’t have that tech yet!
Elliptical Orbits Could be Essential to the Habitability of Rocky Planets
A seismic shift occurred in astronomy during the Scientific Revolution, beginning with 16th-century polymath Copernicus and his proposal that the Earth revolved around the Sun. By the 17th century, famed engineer and astronomer Galileo Galilei refined Copernicus’ heliocentric model using observations made with telescopes he built himself. However, it was not until Kepler’s observations that the planets followed elliptical orbits around the Sun (rather than circular orbits) that astronomical models matched observations of the heavens completely.
Meet the crew for SpaceX's Ax-4 mission to the ISS
The next team of astronauts has been announced for Axiom Space's next commercial human spaceflight mission to the ISS.
Stellar oddball: Nearby star rotates unlike any other
V889 Herculis is an oddball unlike any other star we've ever seen. The nearby sun-like star rotates in a strange way that defies prediction.
SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut launch delayed to Sept. 24 due to Boeing Starliner issues
SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut launch to the ISS has been delayed five weeks to Sept. 24, to allow more time to work out issues with Boeing's Starliner capsule.
Neutron Stars Might Be Squishy Inside
New data on the brightest pulsar observed with a telescope on the International Space Station suggests neutron star interiors are "squishy."
NASA pushes Crew-9 launch to September amid uncertainty of Starliner’s return timeline
The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station poses during training at SpaceX’s Hawthorne facility. Image: SpaceX
NASA is delaying the launch of the next space station crew as it continues to work through thruster issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. In a blog post, the agency said the launch of the Crew-9 mission, aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, is now targeted for no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 24.
Planets of Milky Way's most common stars are less habitable than thought, dead NASA telescope reveals
Planets orbiting red dwarf stars may have a harder time hanging on to the conditions needed for life to arise and survive than previously thought, data from NASA's dead space telescope GALEX reveals.
Unistellar Odyssey review
The Unistellar Odyssey and Odyssey Pro smart telescopes are the smallest and lightest reflector telescopes the company has to offer.
‘Fantastic Four: First Steps' sounds like it's dripping in Space Race nostalgia
Here are the ways "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" might tap into the history of the space race and NASA's famed Apollo program.
Everything we know about Terminator Zero: Release date, plot, cast & more
The Terminator franchise is about to expand in a big and refreshing way with Terminator Zero, its first-ever anime series, coming to Netflix this summer.
2024 Perseids Light Up the August Sky
That ‘Old Faithful’ of meteor showers the Perseids peak early next week.
1st 'hyperspectral' image of aurora borealis reveals true colors of northern lights
Using a high-resolution imaging system in Sweden, Japanese researchers are getting a view of the aurora like never before.
How NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft help satellites build a 'full picture of the storm'
Space.com got an up-close look at one of NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft to more about how data from weather satellites help them on missions.
Earth's 'evil twin' Venus may have mirrored our planet more than expected
Earth and its "evil twin" Venus are very different today, with the latter lacking plate tectonics. New research indicates Venus may have been much more like our planet than we suspected.
3 sun mysteries we still haven't cracked
Our understanding of the sun has come a long way in recent decades, but there are still multiple outstanding mysteries that current and future missions hope to solve.
'Wonder material' found in lunar samples hints at moon's origins
Scientists attempting to discover the process by which the moon formed have new clues thanks to graphene discovered in lunar samples returned by China's Chang'e 5 mission.
