After a decade of exploring the surface of the Red
Planet, the Curiosity rover has recently been looking
up. On February 2, 2023, the NASA rover captured a
stunning sunset on Mars. The image shows rays of
sunlight stretching across the horizon, lighting up a
mass of clouds.
Water is essential for life on Earth. Yet, scientists
currently have comprehensive information on just a
few thousand lakes worldwide. A NASA-led
international mission plans to change that with the
first-ever global survey of nearly all water on Earth's
surface.
A remote area in Antarctica has been identified as
the "coldest place on Earth." According to NASA, the
temperatures in the East Antarctic Plateau can dip to
a bone-chilling -136° F (-93.3° C). That is several
degrees colder than the previous low of -128.6° F
(-89.2° C) set in 1983 at the Russian Vostok
Research Station in East Antarctica.
NASA's Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft returned from its
26-day, record-breaking 1.4 million-mile (2.2 million
kilometers) roundtrip to the Moon on December 11,
2022. The uncrewed spacecraft re-entered Earth's
atmosphere at an impressive speed of 25,000 mph
(40,000 kph). This is 32 times faster than the speed
of sound. The capsule's flawless splashdown into t...
On November 23, 2022, the European Space Agency
(ESA) announced its first new class of astronaut
trainees in 13 years. The 17 candidates were
selected from a pool of 22,500 applicants. They
include five career astronauts, 11 reserve
astronauts, and John McFall — the world's first
astronaut with a disability.
On October 5, 2022, NASA astronaut Nicole Aunapu
Mann became the first Native American woman to
launch into space. Mann is also the first woman to
command a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft to the
International Space Station (ISS). The 45-year-old is
a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian
Tribes.
The origin of Saturn's beautiful rings and the reason
for the planet's unusually large 27 degree-tilt on its
axis has puzzled astronomers for decades. Scientists
had initially believed that the rings had been a part
of the planet since its formation billions of years ago.
However, recent research indicates that the planet
acquired them sometime between 100 and 200 mi...
On September 26, 2022, NASA's golf cart-sized
DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft
intentionally crashed into a distant asteroid. The
spectacular collision, observed by telescopes
worldwide, was NASA's first practical attempt to alter
the path of an asteroid. The $325 million mission
was part of the space agency's overall planetary d...
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), or Unidentified
Aerial Phenomena (UAP) as they are now called, are
finally getting the attention they deserve. On June 9,
2022, NASA announced it had commissioned a
study to examine observations of events that
"cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural
phenomena."
