Livermore CA (SPX) May 27, 2021
Nearly 40 years ago, scientists first predicted the existence of helium rain inside planets composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, such as Jupiter and Saturn. However, achieving the experimental conditions necessary to validate this hypothesis hasn't been possible - until now. In a paper published by Nature, scientists reveal experimental evidence to support this long-standing predicti

Las Cruces NM (SPX) May 22, 2021
Virgin Galactic has completed its third spaceflight and the first ever spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico. The flight, which took place May 22nd, sees New Mexico become the third US state to launch humans into space. VSS Unity achieved a speed of Mach 3 after being released from the mothership, VMS Eve, and reached space, at an altitude of 55.45 miles before gliding smoothly to

Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 27, 2021
Productivity pundits know lots of tricks to make the most of your day, so you can schedule enough time for important tasks while guarding against overload. Planning a day of work for a Martian rover puts a lot of the same strategies into practice. When the Mars 2020 Perseverance's driving and science activities begin, dozens of mission personnel will start each planning session with a mass

Washington DC (SPX) May 27, 2021
The Republic of Korea has become the 10th country to sign the Artemis Accords, which establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations participating in NASA's 21st century lunar exploration plans. Minister of Science and ICT Lim Hyesook signed the Artemis Accords for the country during a ceremony held May 24 in Seoul. South Korea, whose official n

Potsdam, Germany (SPX) May 27, 2021
What is happening deep beneath the surface of ice planets? Is there liquid water, and if so, how does it interact with the planetary rocky "seafloor"? New experiments show that on water-ice planets between the size of our Earth and up to six times this size, water selectively leaches magnesium from typical rock minerals. The conditions with pressures of hundred thousand atmospheres and tem

Kamuela HI (SPX) May 27, 2021
Current and former astronomers from the University of Hawai?i Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have wrapped up a massive collaborative study that set out to determine if most solar systems in the universe are similar to our own. With the help of W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawai?i, the 30-year planetary census sought to find where giant planets tend to reside relative to their host stars.

WASHINGTON — A delay of up to two years in the next New Frontiers planetary science mission competition won’t change the potential destinations for that mission.

NASA announced May 12 it was delaying the release of a draft announcement of opportunity for the fifth New Frontiers mission from this October to as late as October 2023.

WASHINGTON — Chinese attempts to steal U.S. space technology remain a problem despite significant efforts by the Pentagon to protect intellectual property data, the head of Air Force acquisitions Darlene Costello told lawmakers May 26.

On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its independence. America should commemorate this historical milestone in 2026 by landing humans on the moon for the first time since 1972.

Sending humanity back to the moon in 2026 is not only technically feasible, but it also fits squarely in the projected timeline for NASA’s already existing plan to return astronauts to the lunar surface — the Artemis program.