Space News & Blog Articles

A team of scientists presented a new gravity map of Mars at the Europlanet Science Congress 2024. The map shows the presence of dense, large-scale structures under Mars’ long-gone ocean and that mantle processes are affecting Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System.

In 2003, strange features on Mars’s surface got scientists’ “spidey senses” tingling when they saw them. That’s when unusual “anareiform terrain” landforms appeared in images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. They’ve returned each year, spreading across the southern hemisphere surface.

We’ve officially entered a new era of private spaceflight. Yesterday, the crew of Polaris Dawn, a privately funded mission managed by SpaceX, officially performed the first private extra-vehicular activity, commonly known as a spacewalk. The spacewalk was a success, along with the rest of the mission so far. But it’s attracted detractors as well as supporters. Let’s take a look at the mission objectives and why some pundits are opposed to it.

The Milky Way’s outer reaches are coming into view thanks to the JWST. Astronomers pointed the powerful space telescope to a region over 58,000 light-years away called the Extreme Outer Galaxy (EOG). They found star clusters exhibiting extremely high rates of star formation.

The outer Solar System has been a treasure trove of discoveries in recent decades. Using ground-based telescopes, astronomers have identified eight large bodies since 2002 – Quouar, Sedna, Orcus, Haumea, Salacia, Eris, Makemake, and Gonggang. These discoveries led to the “Great Planet Debate” and the designation “dwarf planet,” an issue that remains contentious today. On December 21st, 2018, the New Horizons mission made history when it became the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) named Arrokoth – the Powhatan/Algonquin word for “sky.”

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has delayed its launch, but the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover is heading toward completion. It was originally scheduled to launch in 2018, but technical delays prevented it. Now, after dropping Russia from the project because of their invasion, the ESA says it won’t launch before 2028.