Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and one of our closest neighbors in space. But it’s not a very welcoming place for an Earthling to visit.
There is a U.S. flag on the Moon, but in the future, countries may start to turn access to the Moon and asteroids into serious wealth.
NASA/Neil A. Armstrong
Current trends suggest that powerful nations are defining the rules of resource use in space and satellite access in ways that will make it hard for developing nations to ever catch up.
NASA’s Landsat satellites have been monitoring changes on Earth’s landscape for 50 years.
NASA illustration
When Indigenous peoples lose their river flow to dams, satellite programs like Landsat can help them fight for their resources.
In the next decade, both a U.S.-led group and a collaboration between Russia and China aim to set up bases on the Moon.
Theasis/iStock via Getty Images
In the past 10 years, international alliances on Earth have begun to expand into space. Nations with similar interests collaborate with one another while competing with other space blocs.
SpaceX is seeking to expand its remit to include commercial low-Earth orbit launches.
SpaceX/Flickr
The astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey for the 2020s lays out plans to search for life on distant planets, understand the formation of galaxies and solve deep mysteries of physics.
Remote sensing satellites provide the crucial data that helps scientists model disasters so that they can work on predicting avalanche patterns in future.
A giant asteroid struck Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
NASA has only mapped 40% of the potentially dangerous asteroids that could crash into Earth. New projects will boost that number, and upcoming missions will test tech that could prevent collisions.
The International Space Station is run collectively by the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada.
NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center/Flickr
What happens to the International Space Station when tensions on Earth rise? A space policy expert explains how the ISS is run and how Russian aggression has threatened its operation in the past – and now.
With about 200 orbital launches scheduled and ambitious missions on everything from lunar bases to the search for life in the works, there’s a lot to watch in 2022. An astronomer explains the highlights.