The solar system’s largest volcano Olympus Mons on Mars, seen by Viking 1.
NASA/JPL
Naming features on other worlds is a trickier issue than you might think.
Distant stars above the ruins of Sherborne Old Castle, in the UK.
Flickr/Rich Grundy
When you look up at the vastness of space you can see hundreds, thousands and even millions of years into the past.
The role downunder played in helping track the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.
The three astronauts read from the Bible as part of their message from the Moon. Then on return one declared: “Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.”
Earthrise: astronauts aboard Apollo 8 captured this spectacular photo of Earth rising above the lunar horizon as they emerged from behind the dark side of the Moon.
Image Credit: NASA
Fifty years ago people saw our planet from the outside for the first time.
When the sea level rises to its highest point, we call that high tide. When it falls to its lowest point, that’s called low tide.
Flickr/bpinzini
The Moon has gravity of its own, which pulls the oceans (and us) towards it.
First Man: Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon.
Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures
The new film is a down-to-Earth portrayal of astronaut Neil Armstrong and our complex relationship with the Moon.
When people know it’s a full moon, they tend to use it to explain all sorts of human behaviour.
Todd Diemer/Unsplash
The ‘illumination hypothesis’ – suggests that criminals like enough light to ply their trade, but not so much as to increase their chance of apprehension.
Shutterstock
The moon is our closest neighbour and our best hope for building capacity to explore space.
Shutterstock
The blood moon myths are many and varied, but, at the end of the day, it’s just an eclipse.
Edwin E. ‘Buzz’ Aldrin Jr. poses for a photograph beside the U.S. flag deployed on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969.
Neil A. Armstrong/NASA/AP Photo
Fifty years ago, on July 20, 1969, American astronauts planted a US flag on the moon. A space lawyer explains the implications, who owns the moon, and what it means for lunar mining.
Fragments of the asteroid 2018 LA scattered over a wide area in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Alexander Proyer
Each meteorite is a piece of the puzzle to understanding our solar system.
Blast off.
Sergey Nivens
Nearly 50 years since the first man walked on the moon, our morals are still stranded on Earth.
The time of moonrise and moonset and the shape of the Moon change throughout the month.
Marcella Cheng/The Conversation
When and where you see the Moon in the daytime depends on what phase it is in.
Rocket Lab successfully launched its Electron rocket from the company’s complex on the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand.
Rocket Lab
There are plenty of astronomical things to watch out for this year beyond this week’s lunar eclipse, including new Moon landings and a space station falling back to Earth.
Blood moon on April 15, 2014.
Robert Jay GaBany/wikipedia,
Studying lunar eclipse could help us work out what’s happening on exoplanets.
Changing colours of the Moon during a total lunar eclipse, Mt Buffalo National Park, June 16, 2011.
Phil Hart
There is plenty of excitement about the lunar eclipse this week, but don’t believe all you read and hear about this wonderful astronomical event.
As long as clouds don’t get in the way, the view should be spectacular.
NASA Goddard
A bunch of uncommon things all happening at the same time mean this full moon will have some special attributes.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used in medical devices and for growing plants, like potatoes seen here, are used by NASA to grow plants in space. The U.S. space agency plans to grow food on future spacecraft and on other planets as a food supplement for astronauts.
NASA
LED lights can actually improve upon the sun and help grow plants in space. A Canadian team of researchers is helping to refine and perfect LED technology.
kdshutterman/Shutterstock.com
We’ve only travelled into space in the last century, but humanity’s desire to reach the moon is far from recent.
A view from the Apollo 11 spacecraft, showing the Earth rising above the moon’s horizon (July 1969).
NASA
No human has been to the moon since 1972. But India, China and Russia would like to change that, and soon.