compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

NASA Spots Signs of Twin Volcanic Plumes on Jupiter’s Moon Io On Saturday, NASA’s Juno orbiter got a second close-up with Io, Jupiter’s third-largest moon and the most volcanic world of our solar system. The Juno spacecraft, which arrived at the gas giant in 2016, is on an extended mission to explore Jupiter’s rings and moons. Its latest flyby, which complemented the mission’s first close approach on Dec. 30…more

Can Humans Endure the Psychological Torment of Mars? Alyssa Shannon was on her morning commute from Oakland to Sacramento, where she worked as an advanced-practice nurse at the university hospital, when NASA called to tell her that she had been selected for a Mars mission. She screamed and pulled off the highway. As soon as she hung up, she called her partner, an information-security…more

Supernova: Astronomers crack cosmic ‘murder mystery’ Scientists say they have solved the mystery of what lies at the heart of a celebrated cosmic explosion. In February 1987, a star was seen exploding in a nearby galaxy. It was visible from Earth for months, shining with the power of 100 million suns. There was so much debris, even the most powerful telescopes could not confirm what remained at its heart…more

A U.S.-Built Spacecraft Lands on the Moon for the First Time Since 1972 For the first time in a half-century, an American-built spacecraft has landed on the moon. The robotic lander was the first U.S. vehicle on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, the closing chapter in humanity’s astonishing achievement of sending people to the moon and bringing them all back alive…more

Brightest and hungriest black hole ever detected The most luminous object ever detected has been spied in the distant Universe. It’s a quasar – the bright core of a galaxy that is powered by a gargantuan black hole some 17 billion times the mass of our Sun. Known as J0529-4351, the object’s power was confirmed in observations by the Very Large Telescope in Chile…more

Fragments of Asteroid With Mystery Origin Are Found Outside Berlin Scientists have found pieces of a meteorite that fell near Berlin just after midnight on Jan. 21. It is a rare find, from an asteroid that was identified just before it entered Earth’s atmosphere. Only a handful of such events in the recent past have allowed astronomers…more

When Eyes in the Sky Start Looking Right at You For decades, privacy experts have been wary of snooping from space. They feared satellites powerful enough to zoom in on individuals, capturing close-ups that might differentiate adults from children or suited sunbathers from those in a state of nature…more

The New Space Race Is Causing New Pollution Problems Earth’s stratosphere has never seen the amounts of emissions and waste from rockets and satellites that a booming space economy will leave behind. The high-altitude chase started over Cape Canaveral on Feb. 17, 2023, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched…more

NASA’s ice-hunting VIPER moon rover getting ready to slither to the launch pad NASA’s next moon rover is one step closer to starting its lunar mission. The rolling robot, known as VIPER (“Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover”), is set to launch toward the moon later this year. And it just notched a milestone along that path…more

Private Varda Space capsule returns to Earth with space-grown antiviral drug aboard A California startup’s first in-space manufacturing effort is in the books. The capsule from Varda Space Industries‘ W-1 mission landed in northern Utah this afternoon (Feb. 21), bringing down to Earth crystals of an antiviral drug that were grown in orbit. The success makes Varda just the third company to recover an intact spacecraft from orbit…more