February 4th, 2025
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Earth’s Moon continues to surprise! In a major discovery, a team of scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), an institute of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), have found two Grand Canyon-scale features on the lunar far side. Similar in width and depth to Earth’s Grand Canyon that took millions of years to […]
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It is labeled “noctourism” or nocturnal tourism, the hunger to experience first-hand, along with eyes-on, the nighttime sky in order to soak up the enveloping splendor. Noctourism is a top travel trend for 2025, one that has been flagged by Booking.com, a leading digital travel firm headquartered in Amsterdam with local support offices around the […]
Questions for the day, with universal appeal: If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology similar to ours, would they be able to detect Earth and evidence of humanity? If so, what signals would they detect, and from how far away? A research team led by Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, […]
That large metallic ring that dropped into Africa’s Mukuku village, in Makueni county in the country’s south, is apparently still under study. Reportedly tumbling “red-hot” into that village, the object was pronounced as a piece of rocket debris by investigators with the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) in Nairobia. They reported that the object, which is […]
Yesterday, NASA requested the array of Assessment and Analysis Groups (AGs) that provide community input into Moon, Mars, the outer planets and other exploration target planning to pause all meetings. While the pause is in action, NASA is conducting a review to ensure compliance with recent presidential actions by the President Trump […]
The commercial Blue Ghost moonbound lander has just over a week left in Earth orbit. What comes next is performing the critical Trans Lunar Injection, a propulsive nudge that gives the craft a “transit ticket” to the Moon for about four days of coast period. That engine burn will last for about 16 seconds, […]
This video makes use of ethereal images recently taken on the International Space Station (ISS). Don Pettit, NASA astronaut, is a talented photographer of Earth. Currently on orbit (his 4th mission to the ISS) he took a series of long-duration photos, revealing tracks of urban night lights as the ISS passed over. The stars show […]
Autonomous access to the Moon by Europe is getting a boost by development of the Argonaut Lunar lander – a cargo delivery project. The European Space Agency (ESA) and Thales Alenia Space in Italy have inked a new contract to have that aerospace firm develop Argonaut to deliver cargo, infrastructure and scientific instruments to the […]
Uncontrolled space debris reentries are of growing concern. The prospect of leftovers from space hotfooting into the Earth’s atmosphere can create a collision risk with aircraft in flight. While the probability of a strike is low, the consequences could be catastrophic. Mishap investigation Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) required SpaceX to perform a mishap […]
The Athena Moon lander is now at Cape Canaveral, Florida, targeted for a four-day launch window that opens no earlier than February 26. Built by Houston, Texas-based Intuitive Machines, the spacecraft is the second of four manifested lunar missions as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Payload customers The factory-equipped Athena is […]
