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.
NASA
A Japanese spacecraft is expected to reach Martian orbit in 2025 to collect material from the surface of the moon Phobos before returning to Earth by 2029.
NASA
Sixty years ago, philosopher Hannah Arendt argued an interplanetary perspective may be bad news for humanity as we know it.
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.
Masha Mashkova and Joel Kinnaman in For All Mankind.
Apple TV+
For All Mankind is set in an Apollo era transformed by the inclusion of women, characters of colour and LGBTQ+ protagonists.
Tim Peake could come out of retirement to command the mission.
NASA
The agreement should give British astronauts more flights into space.
Growing Beyond Earth
Astronauts living and working on the Moon will need something to eat. The Growing Beyond Earth program supports international space crop research.
An image from January 2023 showing an X1.2 class flare erupting on the Sun (far left hand side).
NASA/GSFC/SDO
A more active Sun could disable satellites and affect electrical grids on Earth.
The Orionids meteor shower takes place between October and November.
Brian Spencer / Shutterstock
The meteor shower happens when Earth passes through debris from Halley’s comet.
Artists impression of what WASP-17b could look like, based on.
data gathered by Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and other ground- and space-based
telescopes, including the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.
NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
The atmosphere is a reflection of extreme conditions on the super-heated planet.
The “coal-like” material from Bennu.
Nasa / Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebers
Studying the sample could help answer how water arrived on Earth and how life started.
A visualisation of the huge, glowing planetary body produced by a planetary collision.
Mark Garlick
The discovery provides a way to study the birth of an entirely new planet in real time.
Nasa/GSFC
Missions to asteroids are opening up the secrets of the Solar System
The exoplanet K2-18b might host a water ocean.
Credits: Illustration: NASA, CSA, ESA, J. Olmsted (STScI), Science: N. Madhusudhan (Cambridge University)
The results are intriguing, but analysing the atmospheres of exoplanets is no easy task.
Roscosmos State Space Corporation / AP
Space missions are still difficult, dangerous and risky – but it’s still early days in the human journey beyond our planet.
China’s lunar rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit 2, on the Moon, January 2019.
EPA/CNSA via AAP
China has made significant advances in space exploration on its own steam. It doesn’t need a partnership with Russia.
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NASA/Bill Anders
August 22, 2023
Priyanka Dhopade , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau ; Carolle Varughese , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau ; Lena Henry , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau ; Sarah Hendrica Bickerton , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau , and Te Kahuratai Moko-Painting , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Space exploration is often propelled by competition, driven by national pride and with little thought about consequence. It is time to consider space as a commons, not just a resource to exploit.
The Vikram lander should carry the rover to the lunar surface.
ISRO
The Indian spacecraft could lay the ground for future missions with astronauts, and even for lunar bases.
StudioFI / Shutterstock
Solar panels in space could harness more of the Sun’s energy.