Deep Space

A collection of 74 posts

Deep Space

Japan Sets October 20 Launch for Mission to Return Samples From a Martian Moon

Japan's space agency confirmed on August 20 that its mission to collect and return samples from one of Mars' moons will launch on October 20. If successful, it would mark the first sample return from the Martian system. The mission is designed to collect material from either

Launch

JAXA Sets October 20 Launch for MMX Mars Moon Sample Mission

JAXA announced on August 20 that it will launch its Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft aboard an H3 rocket on October 20. The mission aims to observe the two moons of Mars and return surface samples from Phobos to Earth. The agency confirmed the launch date on Thursday, setting in motion

Deep Space

Fastest Known Star in the Milky Way Could Unlock Black Hole's Spin

Astronomers have detected the fastest known star in the Milky Way, a body designated S301 that races around the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center at roughly 25,000 kilometers per second. Its extreme proximity to Sagittarius A could open a new window onto the black hole&

Deep Space

MIT Astronomers Identify a "Black Hole Star," a Possible New Class of Cosmic Object

Astronomers at MIT and other institutions have identified an extremely bright red object in the early universe that appears to blur the line between a star and a black hole. Roughly the size of our solar system, the object emits about 100 billion times more energy than any known star

Deep Space

NASA Extends Voyager 2 Science by a Year With "Big Bang" Power Maneuver

NASA engineers have freed up additional power aboard Voyager 2, extending the science life of the nearly 50-year-old spacecraft by at least another year. The operation, nicknamed the "Big Bang" by the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, keeps the probe's remaining

Deep Space

NASA Administrator Tours Idaho Lab Building Reactor for 2028 Mars Mission

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman visited Idaho National Laboratory on Friday, August 8, to celebrate nuclear power's expanding role in space exploration. The centerpiece of the tour was Space Reactor 1 Freedom, described as America's first nuclear reactor intended to power an interplanetary spacecraft, slated to fly

Deep Space

NASA Tests Power Fix on Voyager 1 as Twin Probes Diverge After 49 Years

NASA is testing a power-conservation fix on Voyager 1 that could extend the spacecraft's science operations by about a year, replicating a procedure that succeeded on its twin, Voyager 2, in July. The complication is that the two probes, built to identical designs in 1977, no longer

Deep Space

Perseverance Set to Break Mars Driving Record as Self-Navigation Powers Ahead

NASA's Perseverance rover will pass 45.16 km of total distance driven sometime next week, breaking the off-world driving record held since 2018 by the Opportunity rover. The automobile-sized vehicle reached that mark in roughly a third of the time thanks to an onboard system that

Deep Space

NASA Extends Voyager 2's Science Life by a Year, Eyes Same Fix for Voyager 1

NASA has extended the operational life of Voyager 2 by at least a year using a power-saving maneuver nicknamed the "Big Bang," and the agency now plans to attempt the same procedure on Voyager 1 within a few months. The two probes are the only working spacecraft

Deep Space

IXPE Observations of a Magnetar May Capture a 90-Year-Old Quantum Prediction

Scientists using NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer may have observed empty space behaving in a way physicists predicted nearly 90 years ago but had never directly seen. The findings, drawn from more than 140 hours of observations of the magnetar 1E 1547-5408 and published in Nature,

Deep Space

Perseverance Captures Earth Vanishing Behind Phobos in a First for Human History

NASA's Perseverance rover has recorded Earth disappearing behind the Martian moon Phobos, capturing our planet as a single point of light that winks out behind the little moon's shadowed edge. It is the first time humanity has photographed Earth being occulted by another object from the

Deep Space

Inouye Solar Telescope Resolves Wave Structures Never Before Seen on the Sun's Surface

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has captured the sharpest images ever taken of the Sun's visible surface, revealing swirling wave-like vortices that have never been observed there before. Published August 5th in Nature, the observations resolve features as small as 19 kilometers across and could help

Deep Space

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Carries Water With Heavy-Hydrogen Ratio 40 Times Earth's

Scientists have measured water on 3I/ATLAS, only the third confirmed interstellar object ever detected, and found a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio roughly 40 times higher than in Earth's ocean water. The finding, reported in the week of August 3 to 5, 2026, points to the comet having

Deep Space

PUNCH Mission Pins Solar Storm Arrival to Within 30 Minutes in First Test

NASA's PUNCH mission has predicted the near-Earth arrival of a solar eruption to within 30 minutes in an initial proof of concept test, using continuous imagery of the inner solar system. The results, presented Tuesday at the Committee on Space Research Scientific Meeting and under review at

Deep Space

NASA's PUNCH Nails Solar Storm Arrival to Within 30 Minutes in Proof-of-Concept Test

NASA's PUNCH mission predicted the near-Earth arrival of a solar eruption to within 30 minutes in an initial proof-of-concept test, using continuous imagery to track the storm across the inner solar system. The result, roughly 10 times more precise than current methods, could reshape how

Markets

Intuitive Machines Closes Goonhilly and COMSAT Deals, Adding Ground Stations Ahead of IM-3 and Altus-1

Intuitive Machines has completed its acquisition of Goonhilly Earth Station Limited and COMSAT LLC, two deep space communications providers with ground station assets in the United Kingdom and the United States. The move expands the Houston company's space infrastructure network as it prepares for its upcoming IM-3

Deep Space

Japanese Probe Sets Record With 400-Meter Asteroid Flyby

A Japanese space agency probe passed just 400 meters, roughly 1,312 feet, from a near-Earth asteroid this month, the closest approach ever recorded for an asteroid flyby mission. The Japanese space agency confirmed the milestone, which places Japan again at the front of close-proximity asteroid operations. The

Deep Space

NASA Backs Concept to Release 10,000 Tiny Probes Directly Into Saturn's Rings

NASA has selected an early-stage concept study proposing to release 10,000 femtosatellites directly into Saturn's rings to gather in-situ data. The concept, funded through NASA's NIAC program, would trade a single expensive instrument for a massive distributed sensor network, targeting one of the

Deep Space

Psyche Nails Mars Gravity Assist, Puts Instruments to the Test Ahead of 2029 Asteroid Arrival

NASA's Psyche spacecraft completed a successful flyby of Mars, using the planet's gravity to speed itself toward a metal-rich asteroid in the main belt. The May 15 maneuver placed the spacecraft on the trajectory needed to rendezvous with its target in the summer of 2029,

Launch

Roman Space Telescope Set for August 30 Falcon Heavy Launch, Eight Months Ahead of Schedule

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to lift off at 7:20 a.m. on August 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. The 42-foot-long observatory is designed to image more than 50 times as much sky in

Deep Space

Juno Measures Europa's Ice Shell at 29 Kilometers, Deepening the Case for a Thick Crust

NASA's Juno spacecraft has produced the first measurement able to distinguish between competing models of Europa's ice shell, placing the average thickness of the moon's cold, conductive ice at 29 kilometers in the region observed. The result, drawn from a single flyby, pushes a

Deep Space

Sun Holds 55 Percent More Silver Than Earlier Estimates, Uppsala Study Finds

Researchers at Uppsala University have determined that the Sun contains 55 percent more silver than previous calculations indicated. The revised estimate, produced with a more realistic model of the solar atmosphere, resolves a long-standing mismatch between the silver measured in the Sun and the amount found in ancient meteorites.

Deep Space

NASA Puts $2.1 Billion Price on Nuclear Mars Spacecraft, Science Payload Not Included

NASA is spending more than $2.1 billion to develop a nuclear-powered spacecraft intended for Mars, according to reporting this week. The figure covers the spacecraft alone and does not include the cost of the science mission it would carry, meaning the true program cost is substantially higher than

Launch

NASA Sets August 30 Launch for Roman Space Telescope on Falcon Heavy

NASA has opened media accreditation for the launches of its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the SpaceX Crew-13 mission, both targeting liftoff in the coming months. The Roman observatory is slated to launch no earlier than 7:20 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30, aboard a SpaceX

Deep Space

Helium Escape Reveals Atmosphere on Rocky Habitable-Zone Planet 48 Light-Years Away

Astronomers have detected helium escaping from LHS 1140 b, a rocky super-Earth orbiting within the habitable zone of a small red star about 48 light-years away. The signal is the first clear evidence of an atmosphere around a rocky planet in the habitable zone of another star. It