The MAPP rover will hold three of MIT’s Space Exploration Initiative’s payloads. (Credit: Lunar Outpost) Editor’s note: This article was first published March 29, 2024, and has been updated. After becoming the first commercial operator to land a spacecraft on the Moon last year, Intuitive Machines is preparing its follow-up mission, IM-2, for launch later … Read more
There’s more evidence, if it was required, that Mars once hosted cool water in large volumes, which would have been an environment well-suited for microbial life to evolve on the Red Planet. Two new pieces of research released this week dovetail nicely with a third which describes a new method to detect fossils of microbial … Read more
Image via James Lee/ Pexels. The secretary bird is a fascinating mix of elegance and executioner. This bird, sporting a delicate crown of feathers, has long slender legs that it uses as weapons to stomp snakes to death. Secretary birds can deliver blows to snakes faster than the blink of an eye, quite literally! The … Read more
New information is pushing Asteroid 2024 YR4 off of our front pages. Initial estimates gave it a 2.8% chance of striking Earth in 2032. Now, the European Space Agency says the chance of it striking our planet is down to a paltry 0.001%. Scientists dislike expressing things in absolute terms because Nature can make fools … Read more
An artist’s concept shows SPHEREx in orbit around Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech An infrared space telescope is scheduled to launch this week to map the sky not once but four times, and with unrivaled clarity. With a launch date as early as Friday, Feb. 28, NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization … Read more
Watch live! SpaceX to launch IM-2 moon mission atop Falcon 9 rocket – YouTube Watch On CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Intuitive Machines is poised to launch its second lunar lander in as many years, marking a significant milestone in commercial space exploration. The mission, known as IM-2, is set to lift off on a SpaceX … Read more
The movement of massive glaciers during global ice ages contributed to the rise of complex life, new research reveals. By analysing zircon crystals in ancient rocks, geologists found that as glaciers flowed across the Earth’s surface, they carved deep into the crust and released key minerals from below. These minerals were later flushed out to … Read more
Meet the wooly devil. Staff members recently discovered this new plant species inside Big Bend National Park in Texas. Image via NPS/ D. Manley. New plant species: Wooly devil Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas is home to more than 1,200 species of plants. And now you can add one more to that list. … Read more
Data from the Chinese rover Zhurong is adding to the pile of evidence for oceans on ancient Mars. For a year, this little craft traveled over nearly two kilometers of the Martian surface and made radar scans of buried natural structures that look like ocean shorelines. Zhurong’s ground-penetrating radar (GPR) looked under the surface to … Read more
Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander stands on the lunar surface in this illustration after its arrival at the ridge near Shackleton crater. Credit: Intuitive Machines UPDATE Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025: Intuitive Machines and SpaceX are targeting a launch for IM-2 this evening. The Kennedy Space Center’s website lists a scheduled launch time no earlier than 7:17 … Read more