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
When the frozen carbon dioxide has all melted in the summer, distinctive marks are revealed on the Martian landscape. These are known as “araneidoform terrain,” because they look like spiders when seen from space. Some of these spider-like landforms are more than a kilometer across, and some have hundreds ofContinue Reading
At the world’s most renowned meteorite show, in Ensisheim in France, I noticed there were many dealers from Morocco. Unlike most of the Europeans and Americans—who had display cases and labels and books—the Moroccan stalls were minimalistic. Perhaps a white sheet covered with lumps of reddish-brown rocks. A pair ofContinue Reading
Considering the current state of affairs, thoughtful gifts for the women in our lives are the least we can do. The world is on fire—literally and figuratively. Human rights are being stripped away, the climate is in freefall, and some days, I’ll catch myself staring at the sky and think,Continue Reading
The optimal fuel route for Mars involves arriving when the two planets are roughly on opposite sides of the sun. This launch window repeats every 18 months, and the journey time of nine months means any problems onboard will need to be fixed by the crew, with no rescue option.Continue Reading
For reasons that were not immediately clear, SpaceX founder Elon Musk took to his social media site X on Tuesday evening to make a perplexing space-based pronouncement. “The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so,”Continue Reading
