The search for extraterrestrial life is targeting Jupiter’s icy moon Europa NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will travel to one of Jupiter’s largest moons to look for evidence of conditions that could support life. by Stephen Ornesarchive page February 19, 2024 We’ve known of Europa’s existence for more than four centuries, but for most of that […]
If you want to study the stars, there’s no better place to start than close to home. After all, the nearest star is just 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) away: the Sun. Its daily presence and predictable motions through the sky may make it seem like a boring, steady companion. But up close, it’s an
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Seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station woke to unwelcome news on the morning of November 15, 2021. NASA, the U.S. space agency, was worried. The station was zooming directly into a suddenly dangerous area littered with trash. A collision could damage the spacecraft. And that could threaten the safety of everyone inside. NASA warned
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For scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, the night of January 3, 2004 entailed six minutes of nerve-wracking terror. Around 8:30 PM Pacific Time, the Spirit rover began its plunge to the Martian surface, as an audience of engineers and others—temporarily unable to receive any communication from the craft—waited anxiously to get
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Space oddities may help reveal dark matter and other secrets in the Milky Way. Astronomer Warren Brown explains. In April, the European Space Agency released the second massive trove of data from Gaia, a spinning, scanning satellite that for nearly five years has been spying on a billion stars. Its goal is to produce a
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Frank Borman was probably the first person to barf in space. Borman was part of NASA’s Apollo 8 mission, which lifted off a launch pad in Florida on December 21, 1968. Over the next six days, the mission made history as it circled the moon and returned home. But Borman, who led the mission, became
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