This 4G NIB had a shorter than planned shelf life, but even if the mission had been successful, the NIB would still be short-lived. Dow says it wasn’t meant to survive the harsh lunar night, which starts in about 9 days (a lunar day and a lunar night are eachContinue Reading
Astronomy lovers in America will be treated to a great show in this month. In the early morning of March 14, a total lunar eclipse will be visible. During this phenomenon, the moon won’t disappear from view but will appear deep red as if it were covered in blood. DuringContinue Reading
With its Blue Ghost lunar module, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace has just achieved what no other private company, anywhere in the world, has ever accomplished: successfully landing on the surface of the moon. Having launched in January, the Blue Ghost Mission 1 touched down at Mare Crisium, in the vicinity ofContinue Reading
WASHINGTON: A US company successfully landed its spacecraft on the Moon on Sunday (Mar 2) after a long journey through space, marking only the second private mission to achieve the milestone — and the first to do so upright. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 touched down shortly after 3.34am USContinue Reading
New research from a team at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics suggests that the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy neighboring the Milky Way, hosts a gravitational structure hundreds of thousands of times the mass of the sun: a potential supermassive black hole. The most widely accepted theory of galacticContinue Reading
A new age of commercial moon exploration is upon us, and one of the most exciting missions yet is about to launch—one laden with rovers, a drill, and even a hopper spacecraft that will try to “jump” into a permanently dark lunar crater to search for ice. The IM-2 mission,Continue Reading
The lunar economy, complete with its own supply chain, may seem like a distant concept, but its foundations are already here. It will center around using the moon’s natural resources to construct scientific infrastructure on its surface, as well as develop capacity for future space exploration (the moon is aContinue Reading
An asteroid discovered late last year is continuing to stir public interest as its odds of striking planet Earth less than eight years from now continue to increase. Two weeks ago, when Ars first wrote about the asteroid, designated 2024 YR4, NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies estimated aContinue Reading
Asteroid 2024 YR4, measuring approximately 40 to 100 meters wide, will pass very close to Earth in December 2032—and might even strike the planet. Because of its size, speed, and the possibility of it making impact, the internet has given it the nickname of “the city destroyer.” Major space agencies,Continue Reading
China has started assembling a planetary defence team to counter the threat of near-Earth asteroids following the discovery of a large asteroid that could strike our planet in seven years. Last Friday (Feb 7), the European Space Agency (ESA) updated their probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in 2032Continue Reading
