The Moon over a minaret of the grand Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan.
AP Photo/Anjum Naveed
Two scholars who study death rituals explain that the corpse is considered spiritually polluting in many religious traditions, while the Moon holds a sacred place.
Dream Chaser would ferry cargo, and eventually crew, to low-Earth orbit.
Ken Ulbrich / NASA
Spaceplanes seemed out of favour when the shuttle was retired in 2011; they now seem to be making a comeback.
The dark, far side of the Moon is the perfect place to conduct radio astronomy.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
Projects under NASA’s CLPS program – including the Odysseus lander that made it to the lunar surface – will probe unexplored questions about the universe’s formation.
Mining the moon for its resources is growing more and more likely.
(Shutterstock)
As space travel and lunar exploration becomes a near-future reality, we should consider the impact of human activities on the lunar environment.
The Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Among the missions being planned is a huge helicopter drone to explore Saturn’s moon Titan.
NASA
The US might be facing international competition to be first to return to the Moon.
Data from the SLIM mission projected at JAXA’s Sagamihara Campus during the craft’s landing.
AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko
Japan is one of several countries that weren’t part of the space race of the 1950s and 1960s looking toward the Moon. They’ve now become the 5th country to have landed on its surface.
Sarah Nance at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, 2019.
Courtesy of Sarah Nance
Sarah Nance uses geologic data and a variety of artistic media to help people think about their place in the landscapes they use and occupy.
Illustration of the Japanese moon
lander separating in orbit.
JAXA
Japan’s space agency is landing its first lunar probe this week. This makes the Moon an increasingly busy target for spacefaring nations – with conflicting political stances among them.
The entrance to For All Mankind’s Happy Valley.
Apple
In sci-fi depictions, extraterrestrial habitats have evolved tandem with scientific understanding of conditions on planets
The Artemis I Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft. The successful Artemis I mission was the first in an increasingly complex planned series of missions, which have now been delayed.
(NASA/Cory Huston)
NASA announced that the next two Artemis missions — Artemis II and III — will be delayed for safety reasons. However, Artemis IV remains on schedule.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
The nature of dark energy remains one of the biggest puzzles in cosmology.
Photograph: Nasa (Goddard Space Flight Center)
The Peregrine and Nova-C landers are due to carry out valuable science at two diverse lunar locations.
A sunspot emitting a flare on the surface of the sun.
(NASA/GSFC/Solar Dynamics Observatory)
The sun is expected to reach its solar maximum in 2025. Recent auroras suggest that the maximum may be bigger than predicted.
NASA isn’t the only space agency with exciting missions to watch for in 2024.
AP Photo/John Raoux
Expect lots of space missions to launch this coming year, with exciting new science to follow.
The Moon, shot from Pakistan during a lunar eclipse.
AP Photo/Fareed Khan
Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing on the Moon made 2023 a big year for lunar exploration, and future years will come with even more discoveries.
Uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system.
NASA/JPL
Five of the Uranus moons might be ocean worlds − and if there’s water, there might be life.
The restored image of Earthrise. A high quality black and white image was coloured using hues from the original colour photos.
Image Credit: NASA, Apollo 8 Crew, Bill Anders; Processing and License: Jim Weigang
Borman’s professionalism helped the risky Apollo 8 mission become a success.
The stark landscape of the Moon as viewed by the Apollo 12 astronauts on their return to Earth.
NASA / The Planetary Society
Some dark craters on the Moon are never exposed to light − ice could be hiding in these permanently shadowed regions, and India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission marked a big step toward finding it.
The OSIRIS-REx capsule carrying samples from the asteroid Bennu lands in Utah on Sept. 24, 2023.
(NASA/Keegan Barber)
In September 2023, a NASA mission successfully brought samples of an asteroid down to Earth in a sealed capsule. Analysis of these samples may reveal information about the origins of the universe.