Astronomy

Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and primary contractor Amentum integrate the SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket with the solid rocket boosters onto mobile launcher 1 inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, March 23, 2025. Artemis II is the first crewed test flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign and is another step toward missions on the lunar surface and helping the agency prepare for future human missions to Mars.

Find out the latest about SpaceX's private Fram2 polar astronaut mission for cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang.

One of the first verified predictions of general relativity is the gravitational deflection of starlight. The effect was [first observed in 1919 during a total solar eclipse.](https://briankoberlein.com/post/einstein-and-eddington/) Since stars appear as points of light, the effect is seen as an apparent shift in the position of stars near the eclipse. But the effect happens more generally. If a distant galaxy is obscured by a closer one, some of the distant light is gravitationally lensed around the closer galaxy, giving us a warped and distorted view of the faraway stars. This effect can also magnify the distant galaxy, making its light appear brighter, and we have used this effect to observe some of the most distant stars in the Universe.

NASA's Orion crew module test article is framed by the well deck of the U.S. Navy's USS Somerset as teams practice Artemis 2 recovery ops.

SpaceX is building Starship as a full reusable heavy-lift rocket to fly astronauts to the moon and Mars.

Fram2, a first-of-its-kind private mission to send four astronauts into polar orbit around Earth, is about to launch

In-situ resource utilization will likely play a major role in any future long-term settlement of the Moon. However, designing such a system in advance with our current level of knowledge will prove difficult, mainly because there's so much uncertainty around both the availability of those resources and the efficacy of the processes used to extract them. Luckily, researchers have tools that can try to deal with both of those uncertainties - statistical modeling. A team from Imperial College London, the University of Munich, and the Luxembourg Institue of Science and Technology recently released a pre-print paper on arXiv that uses a well-known statistical modeling method known as Monte Carlo simulation to try to assess what type of ISRU plan would be best for use on the Moon.

Cave-dwelling orb spiders have adapted their webs so they act as tripwires for prey that crawl on the walls of the caves

Cave-dwelling orb spiders have adapted their webs so they act as tripwires for prey that crawl on the walls of the caves

Even though Jupiter's moon Io is considered the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, Venus actually has more volcanoes and volcanic features on its surface. For a long time, scientists thought that most of these features and volcanoes were ancient remnants of the planet's geological past. However, newer research shows that Venus is still volcanically active.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and an international banking group have quietly concluded that climate change will likely exceed the Paris Agreement’s 2 degree C goal and are examining how to maintain profits

By studying the brains of autistic girls, we now know the condition presents differently in them than in boys, suggesting that huge numbers of women have gone undiagnosed

By studying the brains of autistic girls, we now know the condition presents differently in them than in boys, suggesting that huge numbers of women have gone undiagnosed

NASA's flight directors have taken a page from the astronauts they support, if not also the Masters, Hells Angels and Saturday Night Live's Five-Timers Club. There is now a flight director's jacket.

The Hubble Space Telescope has sent back a gorgeous new view of one of our nearest galactic neighbors, which is full of bright, colorful stars.

Women shoulder most of the work in managing a family and tell us it’s exhausting, but some also say it has benefits

Despite fears that speaking out will make them targets, top researchers warn that the Trump administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science” will harm the nation

The U.S. Space Force is funding the development of a new "Orbital Carrier" spacecraft that can deploy multiple satellites when needed.

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Image: Biomass cleared for fuelling