It’s an ambitious plan to send a micro-spaceship to our stellar neighbour but is this possible with today’s technology or even technology in the near future?
A US$100-million plan has been announced to send tiny probes out in space in search of life elsewhere in the universe. But are they looking in the right place?
Dawn’s mission director and chief engineer describes his ‘dream come true’ job – and how the new data coming back from Ceres could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of our solar system.
Hollywood may already have done it but when we eventually send real astronauts to Mars, what medicines should we arm them with? And will they work the same way as they do on Earth?
New research provides a compact but powerful way for Mars rovers to communicate directly with Earth via an array of smaller antenna elements, bypassing the need for an intermediary.
Plants on the International Space Station must figure out how to grow in a completely novel environment. Their adaptability hints at how they’ll react to changes here on Earth – or in future space outposts.
In the long lead-up to our ultimate flyby of Pluto, space science has reconfigured our notions of what it means to be a solar system, a planet, a world.
New Horizons mission members have worked on the project for even longer than it’s taken the spacecraft to get to Pluto. They’ve planned, built and researched – and now their efforts are paying off.