Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 13, 2025
NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission has successfully established full contact with its four small satellites, confirming they are operational and fully powered. Over its planned two-year duration, PUNCH will conduct extensive 3D imaging of the Sun's corona, or outermost atmosphere, and its transformation into the solar wind. The solar wind, along wi

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 13, 2025
NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission has successfully established communication with ground controllers, confirming that the spacecraft is fully operational and generating power as expected. In the coming weeks, mission specialists will ready the observatory for its scientific survey by performing instrument ca

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Mar 13, 2025
Within the next decade, space agencies aim to bring back rock samples from Mars for examination on Earth. A major concern surrounding these missions is the potential presence of extraterrestrial microbes, which could pose unknown risks. To mitigate such concerns, scientists are developing advanced methods to detect life. For the first time, researchers from the University of Tokyo and NASA have

Washington (AFP) Mar 13, 2025
A pair of astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for over nine months may have to wait a little longer to return home after the launch of their replacements was postponed. The Falcon 9 rocket propelling the NASA-SpaceX Crew-10 mission was set to blast off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday at 7:48 pm (2348 GMT). But with around 45 minutes left on the

European scientists are asking volunteers to lie down on a waterbed for 10 days as part of a pioneering dry immersion study to recreate some of the effects of spaceflight on the body.

High above the Arctic Circle, on the rugged terrain of Andøya, three ESA radionavigation engineers take a rare moment to unwind with a game of shuffleboard. Outside, sheep graze under the shimmering northern lights, a serene backdrop to their demanding mission: test how navigation technologies withstand interference signals. With 100TB of data collected over 5 days, their efforts promise to strengthen the reliability of satellite navigation for the benefit of us all.

While performing yesterday’s flyby of Mars, ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence made the first use of its payload for scientific purposes beyond Earth and the Moon. Activating a trio of instruments, Hera imaged the surface of the red planet as well as the face of Deimos, the smaller and more mysterious of Mars’s two moons.

Video: 01:08:00

Watch the replay of our Hera mission Mars flyby event. On 12 March 2025, ESA’s Hera mission came to within 5000 km of the surface of the red planet and 300 km of Mars’s more distant and enigmatic moon Deimos. During this flyby, Hera performed observations of both Mars and the city-sized Deimos. Hera then needed to swing its High Gain Antenna back to Earth to transmit its data home. On Thursday, 13 March, these images were premiered by Hera’s science team from ESA’s ESOC mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, explaining what they reveal, during our

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Mar 11, 2025
The Greenland Ice Sheet, the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere, is experiencing significant melting due to climate change. However, a new study reveals that intense atmospheric rivers can bring substantial snowfall, mitigating some of the ice loss. Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of concentrated moisture that transport water vapor and heat from warm oceanic regions to c

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 11, 2025
After years of dedicated research, scientists at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have perfected a method to create the specialized fuel necessary for the world's first critical fast-spectrum molten salt reactor. The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) at INL is set to evaluate a revolutionary nuclear reactor design using molten chloride salt combined with uranium as both a fuel and c