Tag Archives: moon

For the first time in more than half a century, a US-built spacecraft has made a soft landing on the moon. There was high drama and plenty of intrigue on Thursday evening as Intuitive Machines attempted to land its Odysseus spacecraft in a small crater not all that far from …

The Apple TV+ series For All Mankind is an alternate history story in which the Soviet Union beats the United States to the moon, leading to a greatly intensified space race. Screenwriter Rafael Jordan was excited to see another science fiction show from Ronald D. Moore, creator of the hit …

By the 2030s, if NASA’s and other space agencies’ plans come to fruition, astronauts and the occasional tourist group will frequently visit the moon. Not long after that, they’ll be able to live for extended periods on lunar outposts, much like astronauts do in space stations today. By the 2040s …

One might expect astronomers to have found all the near-Earth asteroids and comets already. But that’s not the case. Some lurk in orbital spots that are hard to see, because discovering them requires looking straight into the sun. One such object, dubbed Kamo’oalewa, evaded detection until seven years ago—and its …

Everyone’s into asteroids these days. Space agencies in Japan and the United States recently sent spacecraft to investigate, nudge, or bring back samples from these hurtling space rocks, and after a rocky start, the space mining industry is once again on the ascent. Companies like AstroForge, Trans Astronautica Corporation, and …

A rad moon’s on the rise. Early on October 14, our lunar satellite will briefly hover before the sun, obscuring the dawn and immersing millions of people in a strange morning gloom. But this annular eclipse will not be total: Since the moon’s traveling at the more distant part of …

On Sunday, a capsule carrying a one-of-a-kind sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu careened through the atmosphere and landed in the Utah desert. But the OSIRIS-REx mission isn’t quite over: That precious cargo needs to be kept safe, then carefully opened one step at a time, before any science can …

Today, India’s Chandrayaan-3 became the first spacecraft to successfully land near the lunar south pole, and India became the fourth country to make a soft landing anywhere on lunar soil, following the former Soviet Union, the United States, and China. The robotic vehicle touched down at 8:33 am Eastern time, …