By Simona Kitanovska A dwarf planet that exists between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter was probably created in the frozen deep space before it became part of the asteroid belt. Ceres was almost a complete mystery until the robotic NASA spacecraft Dawn approached it for its orbital mission in 2015, and since then scientists
By John Murphy NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins made history last month when she became the first Black woman to live and work on the International Space Station. Late last year, NASA announced Watkins would be assigned to the SpaceX Crew-4 mission to space. She was first selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2017. On
By Zachary Rosenthal An alien spaceship was seen on Mars. On a routine mission to take aerial photographs of the Red Planet, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity captured the image. Scientists could see what looked like a landing capsule, a supersonic parachute and other debris scattered across the Martian landscape. All the evidence pointed to the
By Allison Finch Space is the final frontier — for photography. While the next solar eclipse in the United States won’t be for another two years, the Perseverance Mars rover, which landed on the surface of the Red Planet in early 2021, recently captured spectacular footage of Phobos, Mars’ largest moon, crossing the face of
By Zachary Rosenthal Life in outer space might be more than a sci-fi fantasy. Scientists studying Europa, one of Jupiter’s most famous icy moons, have found that some of its frozen features are similar to those on Greenland, which suggests the moon could hold life. A study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications studied double
By Darko Manevski NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is being deep-frozen to assist it with its latest mission to see the first galaxies formed after the big bang. Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) – a joint development by NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) – reached its final operating temperature below 7 kelvins (minus 447
By Zachary Rosenthal It’s not just the air on Pluto that is cold — the volcanoes on the dwarf plant are frigid, too. According to a group of scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission team, which recently turned up new discoveries about the “geological wonderland,” Pluto’s volcanoes don’t shoot out lava when they erupt. Instead,
By Anamarija Brnjarchevska The rapid retreat of sea ice in Antarctica can be explained by the “simple physics” of the sun’s melting powers, according to a new study. Heat from the sun could explain why ice around the South Pole does not expand and retreat at the same speed, scientists say. Ice cover around Antarctica
By Martin M Barillas Transgenic lettuce may one day be grown in space and eaten by astronauts to fight bone-density loss, known as osteopenia, during long-term space travel in microgravity — and may also address bone loss for the Earth-bound. At the University of California-Davis, researchers are developing a genetically modified lettuce featuring a bone-growing
By Zachary Rosenthal The first sharp image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured a stunningly clear photo of a twinkling star roughly more than 2,000 light-years away from Earth. The photo, released on Wednesday, shows the distant Milky Way star located in deep space about 2,000 light-years away in the Ursa Major constellation. Experts
