Mars

Now you see it, now you don’t: Titan’s enigmatic island. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/CornellSaturn’s moon Titan is arguably the most alien place in the solar system, with its thick atmosphere, hydrocarbon seas, giant dust storms, ice…

SpaceX is on the cusp of launching its gigantic Starship megarocket now that a launch rehearsal and static fire test is complete. Here’s what you need to know.SpaceX is currently dominating the spaceflight industry with its freakishly…

Scientists have spotted a relict glacier on Mars, near the equator—far from the parts of the planet where water ice is known to exist today. While this leftover glacial structure may not contain any water now, the fact that it exists…

For nearly two years, NASA engineers had been worried that the fuel supply of the Mars Odyssey orbiter was running low, bringing a tragic end to the precious spacecraft. But as it turns out, they had miscalculated what’s left in the…

The Vulcan Certification One Booster, May 10, 2022. Photo: ULAAnother heavy-lift launch vehicle we’re excited about is the two-stage Vulcan Centaur being developed by United Launch Alliance. The fully expendable 202-foot-tall (62-meter)…

An artist’s impression of the breadcrumb idea, where a mother rover remains at the cave’s entrance while smaller rovers explore the system and drop nodes behind them. Illustration: John Fowler/Wikimedia Commons, Mark Tarbell and Wolfgang…

A cutout of 3 images taken of the Zhurong rover from March 2022 to February 2023.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizonaChina’s Zhurong rover appears to still be snoozing since entering into hibernation mode a little less than a year ago. The…

NASA’s Perseverance rover has spent its two years on Mars imaging the planet’s surface and collecting rock samples that will, should all go well, be brought to Earth in the early 2030s.The rover collected samples of Martian regolith…

ESCAPADE will see two identical probes carrying various scientific instruments to take measurements of Mars’s magnetosphere. Illustration: Rocket Lab USA/UC BerkeleyNASA’s interest in sending missions to Mars and beyond continues as the…

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently spotted some of the most compelling evidence yet of ancient water on Mars, in the form of rippled rocks shaped by waves. The ripples formed billions of years ago, when liquid water still coveredthe…