You may have flown a flight simulator in a computer game or at a science museum. Landing without crashing is always the hardest part. But that's nothing compared to the challenge that engineers are facing to develop a flight simulation of the very large vehicles necessary for humans to explore the surface of Mars. The Red Planet poses innumerable challenges to astronauts, not the least of which is getting there.

NASA's plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth is on hold until there's a faster, cheaper way, space agency officials said Monday.

It's an exciting time for the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Thanks to cutting-edge observatories, instruments, and new techniques, scientists are getting closer to experimentally verifying theories that remain largely untested. These theories address some of the most pressing questions scientists have about the universe and the physical laws governing it—like the nature of gravity, dark matter, and dark energy.

For decades, scientists have postulated that either there is additional physics at work or that our predominant cosmological model needs to be revised.

While the investigation into the existence and nature of dark matter and dark energy is ongoing, there are also attempts to resolve these mysteries with the possible existence of new physics. In a paper, a team of NASA researchers proposed how spacecraft could search for evidence of additional physical within our solar systems.