After 321 days of sleep, a NASA spacecraft woke up in the cold outer fringes of the solar system. 

New Horizons, the spacecraft that flew past Pluto in 2015, entered hibernation on purpose to save energy as it drifted deeper into the Kuiper Belt, a disk beyond Neptune of comets and tiny icy worlds. 

At some 6 billion miles from Earth, a wakeup call from mission control would have taken nine hours to travel through space. Instead, the spacecraft woke itself up on June 23 from a previously scheduled command. 

New Horizons needs its strength. The intrepid explorer is expected to continue operating into the 2050s over a distance perhaps 100 times farther from the sun than Earth. During its travels, it will visit one more Kuiper Belt rock, following its flyby of Arrokoth seven years ago. The team is now using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to figure out its next destination, said Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator, in a comment on X.

Scientists have used New Horizons to measure how solar wind — the stream of charged particles flowing away from the sun — changes as it moves toward the edge of the solar system.

They found that the solar wind gradually slows as it travels outward because it collides with atoms drifting in from interstellar space. New measurements show the solar wind is 13 to 15 percent slower out there than it is near Earth. The spacecraft's data was published in The Astrophysical Journal. 

New Horizons delivered this composite image of Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth when it flew by in January 2019. Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Roman Tkachenko

Scientists predict the solar wind will slow much more dramatically when New Horizons reaches the so-called "termination shock," where the sun's particles suddenly lose speed. Voyager 2, which is now 13.3 billion miles away from Earth in interstellar space, previously measured a 46-percent drop in solar wind speed when it had reached that point. It was then about 84 times farther from the sun than Earth. 

Learning how the solar wind changes helps scientists map the edge of the sun's influence, said Heather Elliott, a researcher at the Texas-based Southwest Research Institute. And despite the Voyager twins having already left the solar system, the "edge" of the heliosphere — this region in space affected by the sun — is still mysterious. 

"Not only do we learn more about how the sun's influence ends," said Elliott, first author of the paper, in a statement, "but we also gain a deeper understanding of the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space — a critical step toward planning future interstellar travel."

New Horizons launched 20 years ago and flew past Jupiter in 2007 for a gravity boost and scientific observations. It became the first spacecraft to explore Pluto and its moons. New Horizons also detected a previously unknown population of distant objects beyond the known Kuiper Belt with its long-range camera. The discovery could mean the belt extends much farther than expected or that a second, more-distant belt of icy bodies exists beyond it. 

The Moon has now entered its final stretch of the lunar cycle before the New Moon. Over the next few nights, the illuminated portion visible from Earth will continue to decrease until it disappears completely from view.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, July 9, NASA's Daily Moon Guide tracker tells us the Moon phase is in its Waning Crescent phase, with 34% of its surface visible.

Tonight when you look up without any visual aids you'll see just the Oceanus Procellarum and the Kepler Crater. With binoculars or a telescope, you'll see this plus the Grimaldi Basin, Mare Humorum, and the Gassendi Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on July 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through eight distinct phases during that time. While the same hemisphere of the Moon is always turned toward Earth, the portion lit by the Sun changes as it moves along its orbit. This shifting illumination makes the Moon look like it’s changing shape over the course of the month, cycling through crescents, quarter phases, and the bright Full Moon. This regular sequence is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Within just three days of each other, Chinese and Japanese spacecraft got up close and personal with two different asteroids. 

The China National Space Administration sent Tianwen-2 to visit Kamo'oalewa, a 300-foot-wide rock some call a quasi-moon of Earth, on July 2. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, aka JAXA, sent its Hayabusa2 spacecraft by a 1,500-foot-wide space rock dubbed Torifune on July 5. 

The missions, which each scored photos of their targets, show a thirst for knowledge about these dinosaur killers and how to potentially stop them, should one ever be on a collision course with our planet. Though neither of these so-called near-Earth asteroids is a threat, scientists and engineers hope to use these and other close encounters to prepare for potential dangerous ones in the future. 

In a post on X, the European Space Agency congratulated both space programs for their successes while promoting its own Hera mission, a robotic spacecraft on its way to visit Dimorphos, the asteroid NASA's DART mission intentionally slammed into for asteroid target practice in 2022. 

Asteroids are the ancient detritus leftover from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. They're rocky objects that orbit the sun, mostly within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

Unlike planets, asteroids didn't grow large enough to become worlds of their own. The upshot is that they've kept some of that early material intact, serving as time capsules from the dawn of the solar system. 

After studying Kamo'oalewa for many months, Tianwen-2 will attempt to collect a sample from the asteroid. Credit: CNSA / Xinhua

For Tianwen-2, the journey to Kamo'oalewa took more than a year — roughly 400 days, according to Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, which released the image Monday. Scientists used navigation data during the approach to refine their knowledge of the asteroid's orbit. At the time, it was about 26 million miles away from Earth.

Though Kamo'oalewa, which means "oscillating celestial object" in Hawaiian, doesn't orbit Earth, it's sometimes known as a quasi-moon because it takes roughly the same orbital path as the planet around the sun. Some astronomers think it could even be an ancient blown-off piece of Earth from a long-ago collision — a chip off the old block, as it were. 

The spacecraft has come within 12 miles of the asteroid. After studying it for several months, the mission will attempt to collect samples. If successful, China will be the third nation, following Japan and the United States, to bring home bits of asteroid rubble. 

"Besides the intense scientific interest, this is another step toward utilizing the rich resources of accessible asteroids to boost the human settlement of the Earth-Moon system and beyond," said Dale Skran, chief operating officer of the National Space Society, in a statement. "This type of exploration also helps us to plan the protection of Earth from larger rogue asteroid impacts."

The Hayabusa2 mission reached asteroid Torifune, named after a god and ship in Japanese mythology, as part of its extended mission. Launched in 2014, the spacecraft has already visited asteroid Ryugu and returned samples to Earth in 2020.

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Because the spacecraft was traveling at about 3 miles per second, the flyby required a different navigation strategy from how it approached Ryugu. The Japanese space agency said engineers used a combination of images and radio tracking to guide the spacecraft. The peanut-shaped Torifune was about 62 million miles from Earth when the spacecraft reached it.

After their encounters, both missions intend to visit other targets. JAXA is sending Hayabusa2 to 1998 KY26, a 36-foot-wide asteroid. The journey there will take about five years. China plans to eventually send Tianwen-2 to comet 311P beyond Mars. 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has unveiled new views of the galaxy Centaurus A — drawing back thick curtains of dust to expose a core packed with millions of stars. 

The dazzling images have been released to celebrate Webb's fourth year of studying the universe. They reveal a spaghetti bowl of glowing dust, a warped band of gas (in the shape of Tennessee) cutting across the galaxy's center, and a hungry supermassive black hole hidden deep within.

The pictures are spectacular to zoom in on and explore, as with much of NASA's best high definition screensaver-style imagery. But they're also a chance to see some of the universe's most incredible forces at work.

Centaurus A is effectively a laboratory for the events that have shaped galaxies across the cosmos: Galaxies collide; Black holes grow; Stars are born, die, and seed the next generation of stars.

Because Centaurus A is relatively close — about 11 million light-years away — the infrared telescope can examine those processes better than it can in galaxies much farther from home. Every new detail here helps astronomers understand how all galaxies evolve over billions of years.

And this galaxy has plenty of stories to tell.

Roughly 2 billion years ago, Centaurus slammed into another galaxy, leaving behind a warped disk of gas and dust that still stretches across its middle. 

But the collision wasn't mortally wounding. Deep inside Centaurus, a supermassive black hole continues to feast on surrounding material while unleashing powerful jets and energy that ripple through the galaxy.

Previous observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope could only see part of this picture, according to NASA. Visible light was blocked by dense dust, while earlier infrared observatories, such as the Spitzer Space Telescope, lacked the sharp vision needed to separate individual stars. Webb, which primarily uses infrared light, produces much sharper images.

Result: what once looked like a hazy glow is now a crowded landscape of countless stars. By comparing stars of different ages, astronomers can reconstruct the galaxy's past, identifying which stars existed before the collision, which ones were born during that upheaval, and which ones formed afterward.

After combining the near and mid-infrared telescope data, Centaurus A's warped band of gas across the center becomes even more prominent. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / A. Pagan / J. DePasquale / M. Garcia Marin

The new images also reveal delicate filaments and glowing clouds of dust, along with a mysterious S-shaped structure near the center. Scientists can't say yet exactly what created it, but it may be linked to the ancient collision, the black hole's activity, or both.

Webb can also break the galaxy's light into its component colors to measure how gas is moving. Early observations show warm hydrogen gas rotating near the black hole while other gas rushes outward.

This offers new clues about how black holes can both create and destroy. They trigger new stars to form by squeezing gas molecules together, and also shut down star formation down by blasting gas away.

Try getting your screensaver to do that.

It's almost the Third Quarter phase of the Moon's lunar cycle, which means only half of the Moon's Earth-facing side will soon appear illuminated.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, July 6, NASA's Daily Moon Guide tracker tells us the Moon phase is in its Waning Gibbous phase, with 66% of its surface visible.

With just above half of the Moon's surface illuminated, there is still plenty to see. In fact, with just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Kepler Crater, Mare Imbrium, and Oceanus Procellarum. Binoculars will help you see even more, so if you have them pull them out to see the Gassendi Crater, Alps Mountains, and the Apennine Mountains. And finally, keen moongazers with telescopes will also see the Apollo 14 landing spot and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on July 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth approximately every 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the amount of its surface illuminated by the Sun changes as it travels around our planet. As a result, the Moon appears to shift in shape throughout the month, progressing from slender crescents to quarter moons and eventually reaching the brightly lit Full Moon stage. This repeating pattern is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is changing in appearance and visibility each night. This is because of the lunar cycle. We're currently on day 20 of this 29.5 day of this cycle, which means we're approaching the Third Quarter, when the Moon appears half full.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, July 5, NASA's Daily Moon Guide tracker tells us the Moon phase is in its Waning Gibbous phase, with 75% of its surface visible.

If you look up tonight with just your naked eye, you should be able to see the Mare Vaporum, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of the Mare Humorum, the Alphonsus Crater, and the Grimaldi Basin. And if you have a telescope, you'll see all this plus the Apollo 16 landing spot, the Schiller Crater, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on July 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth approximately every 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the amount of its surface illuminated by the Sun changes as it travels around our planet. As a result, the Moon appears to shift in shape throughout the month, progressing from slender crescents to quarter moons and eventually reaching the brightly lit Full Moon stage. This repeating pattern is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Tonight marks day 19 of the lunar cycle, with the Moon continuing through its Waning Gibbous phase. As we get closer to the next phase, the Last Quarter, the illuminated portion of the Moon will continue to appear smaller each night.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, July 4, NASA's Daily Moon Guide tracker tells us the Moon phase is in its Waning Gibbous phase, with 84% of its surface visible.

If you look up tonight with just your naked eye, you should be able to see the Mares Imbrium and Serenitatis, as well as the Kepler Crater. If you have binoculars, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of the Posidonius Crater, the Alps Mountains, and the Grimaldi Basin. And if you have a telescope, you'll see all this plus the Apollo 11 and 17 landing spots, and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on July 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth approximately every 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the amount of its surface illuminated by the Sun changes as it travels around our planet. As a result, the Moon appears to shift in shape throughout the month, progressing from slender crescents to quarter moons and eventually reaching the brightly lit Full Moon stage. This repeating pattern is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Keen skywatchers will see a Waning Gibbous Moon again tonight as the lunar cycle continues and we further away the Full Moon and closer to the New Moon. This means that the Moon will continue to appear smaller and less illuminated each night.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, July 3, NASA's Daily Moon Guide tracker tells us the Moon phase is in its Waning Gibbous phase, with 90% of its surface visible.

You don't need lots of fancy equipment to see features on the Moon's surface. In fact, you can see the Mares Imbrium and Serenitatis, as well as the Copernicus Crater without any visual aids at all. If you do however have binoculars, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of the Clavius Crater, Mare Frigoris, and the Grimaldi Basin. And if you have a telescope, you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14, 15, and 16 landing spots.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on July 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth approximately every 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the amount of its surface illuminated by the Sun changes as it travels around our planet. As a result, the Moon appears to shift in shape throughout the month, progressing from slender crescents to quarter moons and eventually reaching the brightly lit Full Moon stage. This repeating pattern is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Millions of stars, smears of dust, and even background galaxies pack this image, the first major Milky Way view from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in northern Chile. 

The picture, fittingly dubbed Ocean of Stars, marks the beginning of Rubin's 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time. It's a preview of what the observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope will do over the next decade: snap the same crowded star fields every few nights so astronomers can play one epic game of Spot the Difference. 

Together those space images will form a detailed timelapse video of the visible southern sky. 

"It's taken 20 years of hard science, engineering, and more to get to the point where we can call 'action' as we start rolling on this blockbuster movie of the universe," said Phil Marshall, deputy director of Rubin's operations, in a statement. "Millions of alerts in just the last couple of months show that Rubin is up and running as a discovery machine."

By "alerts," Marshall is referring to the roughly 7 million notifications the observatory sends out about things that have changed in the sky each night. Those messages flood alert brokers — systems programmed to sort and classify the information for scientists. 

Rubin, built by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, stands on Cerro Pachón, a desert peak high in the Chilean Andes, where the air is clear, dry, and steady. It takes its name from astronomer Vera Rubin, whose work revealed some of the first strong evidence for "dark matter" — an invisible, abundant substance in space that does not give off or interact with light.

Each zoomed-in section of the Ocean of Stars image is a new window on the universe. Credit: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC / AURA

Ocean of Stars points toward the constellation Lupus, close to the crowded plane of the Milky Way. When you zoom in, sharp points of color — blue, white, and red — emerge from the haze. Rubin's 3,200‑megapixel camera, the largest on Earth, uses six filters to capture these different shades of light. 

Bluer stars tend to be hotter, heavier, and younger. Redder stars are usually cooler, lighter, and older. By reading those colors across images like this one, astronomers can estimate when different parts of the Milky Way formed.

The scale is positively enormous. Rubin will create a new, detailed image every 40 seconds. Over the course of the survey, it'll probably lay its eye on 17 billion Milky Way stars. Each night, Rubin will collect about 10 terabytes of data — roughly as much as you can store on 10 high‑capacity smartphones.

Many of those sit in jammed regions like the one featured in Ocean of Stars, where older telescopes have either failed or struggled to separate one star from the next. Rubin's sharp vision and image processing mean scientists can tease out faint light and turn what once looked like a haze into a clean star‑by‑star census.

The Rubin Observatory's star field reveals countless background galaxies, including this one at the center of this cropped section. Credit: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC / AURA

And this is just one frame. Rubin will revisit each patch roughly 800 times throughout the survey. Scientists expect to see stars pulse, dim, or drift; catch new supernova explosions as they flare;  and trace the comings and goings of asteroids.

For now, Ocean of Stars is an excuse to literally stare off into space. The observatory has released a navigation tool that will help you get lost in the detail. 

Scientists are closing in on an explanation for how mysterious pure sulfur rocks ended up on the surface of Mars.

NASA's Curiosity rover accidentally discovered them at Gale Crater in 2024 by driving over them, crushing the material, and exposing a bed of crystals the color of Mello Yello. The mission team later realized this wasn't a small patch of rare rocks but a vast field sprawling 50 yards.

When sulfur is made naturally on Earth, it is usually linked to superheated volcanic gases and hot springs. Another way it can form is through interactions with bacteria, said Abigail Fraeman, deputy project scientist on the Curiosity mission, two years ago.

"We don't think we're anywhere near a volcano where the rover is, so that is a puzzling feature to find in this particular location," she told Mashable then. 

But a team of researchers now has an alternative idea that wouldn't require hot springs or Martian life. Instead, a space rock may have slammed into an area that already had a cache of sulfur buried underground. The extraordinary heat from the collision could have melted the sulfur into a liquid, thus allowing it to cascade downhill for a few miles before hardening into solid chunks like the ones the rover found. 

Curiosity is surrounded by plenty of sulfates — rocks that contain sulfur mixed with other materials — at Gale Crater. But unadulterated sulfur is a whole different story. No other Mars mission has found pure elemental sulfur just lying around.

Scientists recently presented their study of the pure sulfur on Mars at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. 

The smoking gun for the scientists' asteroid hypothesis is a small, damaged crater about 1,280 feet wide uphill from the sulfur deposits. Part of that crater's lip is missing; it could have been a natural channel for molten sulfur to spill out and flow about 2.5 miles downhill.

The sulfur may have pooled behind piles of rock that had fallen into the valley. A handful of clues support this, but one of the most compelling comes from the round holes spotted in the rocks. Researchers think they may be bubbles that foamed as gas escaped from the cooling liquid sulfur, according to one of two papers presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston in March. Rover images showed more holes at the higher points of the deposit, which is what scientists would expect from a pool gradually cooling from the bottom up.

To test the asteroid impact idea, researchers modeled space rocks striking the Martian surface at speeds between about 11,000 and 22,000 mph with computers. The simulations showed that faster impacts melt more sulfur, according to another LPSC paper. 

After inadvertently crushing Convict Lake, a rock containing pure sulfur, Curiosity found others like it, such as this one dubbed Snow Lake. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

But there was a catch. Only about 20 to 25 percent of the melted sulfur stayed inside the crater. The rest was blasted out or vaporized. 

When the scientists assumed sulfur made up only a small portion of the ground — as is common on Mars — the simulated crash didn't produce nearly enough melted sulfur. When the ground around the crater was composed of at least half sulfur, the impact could have produced the right amount of liquid sulfur to explain the rover's discovery.

The team suggests the sulfur itself could have come from ancient volcanic eruptions that already existed at the site of the asteroid collision. The impact could have melted those rocks rather than created them. 

The simulations are still rough, the researchers say, as they don't have a specialized physics model yet for how sulfur behaves under the extreme pressures of an asteroid impact.

Curiosity is approaching the region where scientists think this sulfur-rich material may be located. Future observations could reveal whether those rocks truly contain a lot of sulfur, helping to confirm whether an asteroid impact could have created the strange sulfur deposits.

A giant planet somehow heated back up billions of years after its star died, giving astronomers insight into the wildly unexpected afterlife of solar systems. 

Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, researchers recorded the first detailed atmosphere measurements of a planet orbiting a white dwarf, the husk of a sun-like star that has long since fizzled out. The exoplanet, WD 1856 b, is about 80 light-years away from Earth in space.

These findings, published on Wednesday in Nature, could reveal a possible fate for our own planetary neighborhood. Though Earth and other close planets are unlikely to survive the sun's bloated red giant phase, which comes before a medium-size star withers into a white dwarf, the new study suggests at least some of the outermost planets could — and even reshuffle their orbits, setting the stage for a second act long afterward.  

"We're used to looking back in time when we use telescopes, but this is the first time we have been able to look forward to what might happen," said Ryan J. MacDonald, an astronomy lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, in a statement. "It's like using a time machine to peer into the distant future of our solar system."

Astronomers say WD 1856 b probably didn't settle into its present orbit right after the star collapsed. It likely wandered closer to it, over billions of years, after its star collapsed. As the world tightened its orbit, the white dwarf's gravity squeezed and flexed the planet as it approached, generating internal heat that caused its global temperature to rise.

Before this, scientists knew these worlds around white dwarfs could exist, but they had almost no direct data on what they actually looked like or how they changed over time.

This one, WD 1856 b, has an atmosphere chock-full of methane with a veil of haze, though scientists still can't say exactly what that layer of particles is made of. 

The planet is also a heavyweight — about four to 11 times the mass of Jupiter. That's an odd role reversal, given its host star is now closer to Earth's size. The exoplanet's radius is about eight times larger than the dead star, said Christopher O'Connor, a co-author and astrophysicist based at Northwestern University, and it's so close to its host that its version of a year lasts less than two days. 

"This is one of the most bizarre planetary systems we know of," O'Connor said in a statement. 

The most surprising twist for the researchers is the exoplanet's scalding temperature. Based on the faint heat from its white dwarf, the planet should be freezing cold. Instead, it sits at roughly 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Let's just say that's warm enough to demand an explanation.

When a sun-like star nears the end of its life, it expands into a red giant, 100 to 1,000 times its original size, enveloping nearby planets. Credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / H. Olofsson

Computer models indicate the planet received that extra heat after its orbit changed. The researchers ruled out a scenario in which the planet moved close to the star while it was still a red giant, because the planet would have cooled by now. 

Despite popular belief, not all stars die in a grandiose supernova explosion. The nuclear fuel of medium-size stars like our sun simply peters out. As these stars near the end, they swell from 100 to 1,000 times their original size, in what's known as the red giant phase. The red giant eventually expands around the nearest planets. In our own solar system, astronomers think the victims will include Mercury, Venus, and, yes, even Earth.  

As of now, the most plausible explanation for the case of WD 1856 b is that its inward migration happened roughly 3 billion to 5.5 billion years after the star became a white dwarf. Because the dead star is part of a triple star system, it's possible the remaining two stars' gravity could have had something to do with the changes to WD 1856 b's orbit, O'Connor said.  

The takeaway: If planets can survive the death of a star, that greatly widens the scope of where — and when — habitable worlds could be lurking in the universe. To learn more, the researchers plan to continue looking for other exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs with the Webb telescope. 

"Our results show that stellar death is not the end," MacDonald said. "Some planets experience a vibrant and lively future after the death of their star."

NASA's new prototype rover ERNEST is made to test technologies for moon and mars exploration.

Tonight is the Full Moon, which as we all know, means the Moon shining at its fullest in the sky. This marks the peak of the lunar cycle before it gradually begins to wane again and head towards the New Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, June 29, the Moon phase is Full Moon. Tonight, 99% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need any visual aids tonight to see features on the Moon's surface. In fact, without anything you'll see the Mare Fecunditatis, Mare Crisium, and the Kepler Crater. With binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Clavius Crater, Alps Mountains, and the Apennine Mountains. For keen astronomy fans with a telescope, you'll also be able to spot the Apollo 12 and 16 landing spots, as well as the Rima Hyginus.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, passing through eight distinct phases during that time. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it moves in its orbit. This changing angle of sunlight is what makes the Moon look different throughout the month, from thin crescents to half-lit shapes and eventually a fully illuminated Full Moon. The continual progression through these stages is called the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

It's almost the Full Moon, and in June it's called the Strawberry Moon. Like many of the Moon's names, this doesn't have anything to do with the visuals of the Moon (kind of like how last month's moon wasn't actually blue), but more to do with the seasonal and cultural traditions associated with June.

Want to know more about the first Moon of the summer? Keep reading to find out more.

When is the June full moon?

The Full Moon will occur on Monday, June 29. Time and Date estimates it will peak at 7:56 p.m. ET.

What is the June full moon called?

The June Full Moon is known as the Strawberry Moon.

According to NASA, this name originated with the Algonquin tribes of the northeastern United States. It marked the time in June when strawberries were ripe and ready to harvest.

So, it's no surprise it ties in with peak strawberry season, when the fruit is at its best and you start seeing punnets everywhere. Another little reminder that summer is finally kicking in.

When is the next full moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on July 29.

What are the lunar phases?

The Moon completes a full cycle of eight phases as it orbits Earth in about 29 and a half days. As it moves around our planet, sunlight falls on different parts of it from our point of view, even though we always see the same side. This changing angle of light makes the illuminated portion appear to grow and shrink, moving from full brightness to a thin glow and back again. The phases are:

• New Moon — The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (so, we don't see anything).

• Waxing Crescent — A small sliver of light appears on the right side

• First Quarter — Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

• Waxing Gibbous — More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

• Full Moon — The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

• Waning Gibbous — The moon starts losing light on the right side

• Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) — Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

• Waning Crescent — A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

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Today's Mars rovers typically drive at about 500 to 1,000 feet per hour — roughly the length of one to three football fields — and only for short stints at a time. 

NASA engineers say they could go so much longer and faster if they could only think more for themselves. 

A miniature prototype is already proving that point. On a recent test day, ERNEST, short for Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped Terrain, rolled toward a pile of boulders that would stop Curiosity and Perseverance in their tracks. Instead of stalling or waiting for new instructions from controllers, it sized up the rocks, shifted its stance, and climbed straight over — no joystick from 200 million miles away necessary.

The robot, about four-feet long, looks a little like Wall-E or Johnny 5, with four mesh wheels in place of treads. Those wheels can lift and tilt, as if rising on tiptoes. ERNEST has already shown it can trundle about 16 miles across the Colorado desert in California. Engineers were hands-off during the excursion, mostly there to see how far the rover's new brain and body could take it. You can watch how it moves and navigates treacherous obstacles in the two videos below. 

The space agency's next-generation of rovers will sense hazards, pick their own paths, manage their power and health, and keep driving without waiting for detailed instructions from Earth. Micromanaging from mission control often means the current rovers sit idle between communication windows. But AI and onboard autonomy could reduce that downtime, allowing the machines to travel faster and farther into new frontiers.  

"Integrating artificial intelligence and autonomy software is the future of extraterrestrial rovers because it fundamentally overcomes the communication delays and communication resource constraints associated with space exploration," Ashish Goel, a research technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Mashable. "We have already seen that the Perseverance rover is able to drive significantly more distance than the Curiosity rover, despite having a similar mechanical design, primarily because of its ability to think and drive, and better autonomous driving capabilities in general."

NASA has not announced a mission that would use ERNEST directly, but the agency has been studying concepts for future long-range lunar rovers that would require much greater independence.

One concept, known as Endurance, envisions a rover capable of traveling more than 1,200 miles on the moon over a span of four years, collecting and delivering samples across the lunar surface. To hit that goal, the rover would need to cover 2.5 to 4 miles per Earth day — about what Perseverance does in a year — and keep moving even when Earth can't send new instructions.

That scale of driving creates three big problems for human operators. First, communication takes time and literal bandwidth. A rover can't wait around for engineers to approve every turn of the wheel if it needs to cross a continent's worth of craters. Second, the schedule can't afford daily hand‑holding. Mission planners talk about uplinks, the batches of commands NASA sends as radio signals to a rover, only every couple of weeks, not every day. Third, the rover must survive and stay productive through harsh swings in light and temperature, including long two-week stretches of lunar night.

To handle that, the team behind Endurance argues for true onboard autonomy, not just smarter cruise control, according to a paper from the 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference. The rover must control its own route, power use, thermal limits, and health checks. It has to pick paths that meet science goals while steering clear of boulders, craters, and sand traps. When something goes wrong, it needs to diagnose at least some problems on its own.

"The frequency of anomalies," the authors wrote, "has to be sufficiently low to maximize the mean-distance between interruptions, i.e., the distance traversed before the rover has to stop and call home for help."

ERNEST has already shown it can trundle about 16 miles across the Colorado Desert in California. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

That's where AI and ERNEST come in. Engineers first built even smaller, half‑scale rovers and ran them through a sandbox full of artificial moondust. They tried 11 different ways to control the suspension before they arrived at the design. The prototype can squat, lean, or walk over obstacles and spread its weight when the ground looks soft.

To replace a human operator, the team turned to reinforcement learning, a type of AI where a robot learns by trial and error. JPL's Dynamics and Real‑Time Simulation Lab built a virtual world that mimics ERNEST's behavior on different slopes, surfaces, and rock fields. Engineers fed the simulator the data from real hardware tests, then virtually drove for thousands of hours.

After months of digital practice, they moved the new driving "brain" into the real rover and sent it into the lab's Mars Yard, a sort of obstacle course for extraterrestrial robots. There, ERNEST navigated sand ripples, rubble piles, steps, and steep slopes. It chose when to lift a wheel, when to crab crawl sideways, and when to pick a safer way around trouble.

But autonomy has to reach far beyond clever footwork. A rover needs sharp perception to navigate through some of the trickiest lighting conditions in the solar system. On the moon, for instance, sunlight can blast one side of a scene and plunge the rest into deep shadow. Dust and rock don't scatter light the way air does on Earth, so cameras can see both blinding glare and pitch dark in the same frame. That mix makes it hard to spot hazards and estimate distance.

To address those challenges, engineers want to give future rovers sharper "eyes" — better cameras, headlights, and laser 3D mapping — so the onboard AI has enough information to make informed steering decisions. 

"As more capable computers become available for space missions, we can leverage the advancements in AI and autonomy to go farther, faster, and into more challenging environments, to unlock more scientific insights from our future planetary rovers," Goel said.

We're just a few days away from the Full Moon, which means a big chunk of its surface is lit up and easy to see. If you want to do some moon-gazing, we're at a prime time in the lunar cycle.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, June 26, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 88% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need any visual aids tonight to see features on the Moon's surface. In fact, without anything you'll see the Mares Crisium and Imbrium, as well as the Copernicus Crater. With binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Clavius Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Alps Mountains. Finally, if you have a telescope, this will help you see all this plus the Rima Ariadaeus, the Fra Mauro Highlands, and the Apollo 17 landing spot

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, passing through eight distinct phases during that time. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it moves in its orbit. This changing angle of sunlight is what makes the Moon look different throughout the month, from thin crescents to half-lit shapes and eventually a fully illuminated Full Moon. The continual progression through these stages is called the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

An interstellar comet that recently passed through the solar system may have formed as long as 12 billion years ago, making it one of the oldest planet-building materials ever observed.

Comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar object detected in our neck of space. As it passed near the sun in late 2025, it released unusually large amounts of gas, giving scientists a rare chance to study its composition in detail.

Observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope focused on the comet's isotopes — different versions of hydrogen and carbon that act like long-lasting chemical fingerprints. Those measurements showed values that do not match any known comet from our own solar system or nearby star-forming regions.

Scientists say the results point to something unusual: Comet 3I/ATLAS likely formed in an extremely cold, chemically primitive region of the early Milky Way and may preserve material from a planetary system that formed more than 7 billion years before the sun and Earth. That would make it about 4 billion years older than some initial predictions, and a rare surviving fragment of the galaxy's earliest days.

"This was a unique opportunity to study an ancient object from the distant galaxy," said NASA astro-chemist Martin Cordiner, lead author of the study, in a statement. "On the one hand, we get direct insight into that distant time and place, and on the other, we learn something about how unusual our own solar system may be."

A comet is a small, icy object left over from the beginning of a star system. It is made mostly of frozen gases, water ice, dust, and rock. When it gets close to a star, like the sun, some of that ice warms up and turns directly into gas, skipping over the liquid phase. The gas forms a glowing cloud and sometimes a tail pointing away from the star. 

This foreign comet came from another part of the galaxy and was later ejected — likely by a gravitational scrape from a planet or passing star — before drifting across interstellar space for hundreds of millions of years. Scientists only know about two other interstellar visitors having passed through our neighborhood: 'Oumuamua in 2017, which turned out not to be a comet, and Comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.

Ratios of heavy carbon and heavy hydrogen never seen among comets in our solar system appeared in the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS that passed through in 2025, according to NIRSpec observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / M.Cordiner / Alyssa Pagan

One of the strongest clues about Comet 3I/ATLAS's age and origins comes from its water, which contains an unusually high amount of deuterium, a heavier form of hydrogen. The level is more than 30 times higher than in typical solar system comets. Its carbon isotope ratios also fall outside the range seen in nearby gas clouds and young planetary systems.

Taken together, the chemistry suggests the comet formed in temperatures below about -400 degrees Fahrenheit and has changed very little since then. The findings from the Webb study appear in the journal Nature. 

Researchers also say the carbon data points to a birthplace in a region of the Milky Way that was poor in heavy elements but enriched by earlier generations of massive stars. That matches conditions expected during an early burst of star formation in the galaxy's history.

While the Webb data is enlightening, scientists cannot trace the comet back to a specific star system. Over billions of years, gravitational encounters with other bodies throughout the Milky Way would have scrambled its trajectory beyond reconstruction, so researchers have relied on its chemistry instead of its orbit.

If the age estimate holds, 3I/ATLAS offers a direct glimpse into how some of the first Milky Way planets formed. 

"For us as scientists, finding these rare isotopes is fascinating, but the bigger picture here is looking at the possibilities of prebiotic chemistry elsewhere in the galaxy," said Stefanie Milam, a co-author from NASA, in a statement. "So far, we know of only one place in the vast cosmos where chemical ingredients led to life – our solar system, our Earth. Analysis of these interstellar objects is a major step towards learning how common, or uncommon, the conditions for the evolution of life are in the universe."

Now that the First Quarter has passed, the Moon is more than half illuminated and will continue to grow brighter each night. This will happen until we reach the Full Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, June 21, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 64%% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

With just your naked eye, tonight you'll be able to see the Mares Fecunditatis, Serenitatis and Tranquillitatis. With binoculars, you'll also catch a glimpse of the Archimedes Crater, Posidonius Crater, and the Mare Nectaris. If you have a telescope, this will help you see all this plus the Caucasus Mountains, the Descartes Highlands, and the Rima Hyginus.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. While the same side of the Moon always faces our planet, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it travels around Earth. As a result, we see the Moon appear in different shapes over the course of a month, from slender crescents and half moons to a bright Full Moon. This repeating sequence of phases is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

It's now the First Quarter, which means the Moon is half full, and there's plenty surface area illuminated to spot features.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, June 21, the Moon phase is First Quarter. Tonight, 54% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

With just your naked eye, tonight you'll be able to see the Mares Fecunditatis, Serenitatis and Crisium. With binoculars, you'll also catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, Posidonius Crater, and the Mare Nectaris. If you have a telescope, this will help you see all this plus the Linne Crater, the Descartes Highlands, and the Rupes Altai.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. While the same side of the Moon always faces our planet, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it travels around Earth. As a result, we see the Moon appear in different shapes over the course of a month, from slender crescents and half moons to a bright Full Moon. This repeating sequence of phases is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

An enormous world orbiting a sun-like star just 57 light-years away in space may have a pink hue and a sky filled with clouds of salt.

Astronomers used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to study a distant object called GJ 504 b, and for the first time, detailed in a new study, they captured its light in enough detail to study its atmosphere directly rather than relying on rough brightness calculations.

"Distant object" is about as precise of a label as it gets for this thing. Despite the Pink Planet nickname, astronomers aren't even sure what it is. Some studies have suggested it might be a giant exoplanet, while others argue it could be a brown dwarf, a sort of failed star too small to generate its own nuclear power. For now, astronomers are comfortable calling it a "planetary-mass companion."

The problem is that GJ 504 b is cold, faint, and difficult to study. But with Webb, researchers finally had a chance to gather a spectrum, a technique that splits the world's light into its component colors. The presence or absence of different shades can reveal the mix of elements in its atmosphere. 

The most striking finding was that this place has clouds — and not just any clouds — salt clouds. Though previous work has theorized salt clouds should be able to form in worlds between 400 and 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, astronomers haven't really found evidence of them over the past 15 years, said Aneesh Baburaj, a Northwestern University astronomer, who led the study.

"Salt clouds are unusual," Baburaj told Mashable. "GJ 504 b provides some of the first evidence that salt clouds exist in the atmosphere of such cold objects."

At roughly 550 degrees Fahrenheit, GJ 504 b might not seem cold. But compared to most directly imaged exoplanets, that temperature is quite balmy. 

The researchers attribute the lower temperature to its age. While most gas giant planets are extremely hot at birth, they cool over time. The new study estimates GJ 504 b is 2.5 to 4 billion years old. 

The James Webb Space Telescope hints that the 'Pink Planet' has planet-forming origins, but a brown dwarf scenario for the distant object can't be ruled out, researchers say. Credit: iStock / Getty Images Plus illustration

As for those salt clouds, the salt is not table salt or even Pink Himalayan Rock Salt, though that would go splendidly with the theme. The paper, published in The Astronomical Journal, describes them as clouds made from tiny particles that form when gases cool down just enough to condense into solids or liquids. 

On Earth, clouds form when water vapor condenses into droplets that drift through air. But on GJ 504 b, the same process happens with far more extreme ingredients. The atmosphere contains gases that can combine into mineral-like compounds at high temperatures, and when conditions shift, those compounds condense into microscopic grains. Those grains then float through the atmosphere and scatter light.

These clouds are likely made of alkali metal compounds, such as potassium chloride, or perhaps sulfide compounds, like manganese sulfide. 

"We do not have enough evidence to say exactly what kind," Baburaj said.

The cloud layer likely plays a major role in the GJ 504 b's appearance. The team describes a faint pinkish tone in the way the light travels through the atmosphere. That means GJ 504 b might not shine pink, per se, but its atmosphere filters its star's light in a way that leaves a faint warm tint in the spectrum.

Despite the new detail provided by Webb, astronomers still haven't settled the debate over whether the Pink Planet is indeed a planet. The chemical evidence appears richer in heavy elements, like carbon, than its host star. That pattern often shows up in planets that form within a disk of gas and dust around a young star. But there are enough uncertainties that the researchers still can't rule out its being a brown dwarf. 

If it is a planet, it's one that weighs about 25 times more than Jupiter, the most massive planet in our solar system.

The Moon continues to get more illuminated each night as we work through the lunar cycle. Can you see anything tonight? Keep reading to find out what you might see.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, June 20, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 44% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

With just your naked eye, tonight you'll be able to see the Mares Fecunditatis, Serenitatis and Crisium. With binoculars, you'll also catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, Posidonius Crater, and the Mare Nectaris.. If you have a telescope, this will help you see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, the Descartes Highlands, and the Rupes Altai.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. While the same side of the Moon always faces our planet, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it travels around Earth. As a result, we see the Moon appear in different shapes over the course of a month, from slender crescents and half moons to a bright Full Moon. This repeating sequence of phases is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The lunar cycle is well underway, and the Moon is becoming more and more noticeable each night. Its bright crescent shape continues to grow as we head towards the First Quarter phase.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, June 19, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 33% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

With just your naked eye, tonight you'll be able to see the Mares Fecunditatis and Crisium. And with binoculars, you'll also catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater. If you have a telescope, this will help you see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot and the Mare Nectaris.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. While the same side of the Moon always faces our planet, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it travels around Earth. As a result, we see the Moon appear in different shapes over the course of a month, from slender crescents and half moons to a bright Full Moon. This repeating sequence of phases is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

A strange clump of stars near the Milky Way's core may be the battered remnant of something far more complex than previously thought.

They call this space region Terzan 5, named after astronomer Agop Terzan, who discovered it in 1968. At first glance, it looks like a dense ball of old stars, the kind astronomers usually label a globular cluster. But new data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, combined with two decades of Hubble observations, show it's much more than that.  

Though globular clusters usually have just one ancient star population, Terzan 5 appears to have at least four generations. The first stars were born 12.5 billion years ago, followed by waves dating back to roughly 4.7, 3.8, and 2.5 billion years ago. 

The chemistry inside the cluster also points to at least two kinds of supernovas happening within it. Early, massive stars exploded and enriched the system with heavier elements. Later, so‑called Type Ia supernovas — white dwarfs that blew apart — added more iron. Over time, the levels of lighter elements, such as oxygen and magnesium, dropped. That pattern fits a system that keeps recycling gas and forming new stars.

To astronomers, these clues suggest Terzan 5 started life far more massive, then shed most of its stars into the Milky Way's bulge, the dense swarm of stars around the center of the galaxy. By reconstructing its lost mass, testing whether it hides dark matter or a central black hole, and mapping how the galaxy disassembled it, researchers hope to use Terzan 5 as a sort of Rosetta Stone for studying how galaxies build their central regions.

"This is like a kind of a galaxy in a bottle," said R. Michael Rich, a research astronomer at UCLA, at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California. 

Terzan 5 sits about 3,000 light-years from the Milky Way's center, in the crowded region astronomers call the bulge. 

Because Terzan 5 resembles a chunk of the material that helped build the Milky Way’s central bulge, the research team is now calling it a "bulge fossil fragment," said Francesco R. Ferraro, principal investigator for the observations at Italy's University of Bologna, in a statement. 

By comparing about two decades' worth of images, the researchers tracked how individual stars drifted across the sky. True members of Terzan 5 move together, while foreground and background stars wander in different ways. 

"We look at the cluster as if it were a flock of birds, and essentially, there are these birds flying together in the flock, but then there are a lot of other birds flying around kind of randomly," Rich said. "The other birds are stars in the galactic bulge."

Now the team wants to rewind its life story. Today, Terzan 5 weighs about 1 to 2 million times the mass of the sun, similar to a hefty cluster. But the team believes the group started life with far more mass — perhaps on par with 1 billion suns — and slowly lost most of its stars to the Milky Way's bulge. The team plans to use Webb to count low‑mass stars in Terzan 5 and estimate how strongly the galaxy stripped stars away over time.

Astronomers used new data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, left, combined with two decades of Hubble Space Telescope observations for the study of Terzan 5. Credit: NASA illustration

They also see hints that something unseen may lurk inside. Earlier measurements suggested that stars along the outer edges of Terzan 5 move faster than the visible matter comfortably explains. That tension helped motivate the Webb study in the first place. 

"We are presently doing detailed analysis to try to find out if we can account for that motion by a population of low-mass stars, or whether we need something else," Rich said. "That something else would possibly be the first globular cluster to host dark matter." 

Another idea points to a massive black hole in the center, which would reveal itself through very fast‑moving stars near the core. So far the team has not seen clear evidence for that.

The Moon is slowly making its way back into view after this month's New Moon. It's still faint, but a slim crescent is starting to take shape and will become easier to spot over the next several evenings.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, June 18, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 23% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

With just your naked eye, tonight you'll be able to see the Mares Fecunditatis and Crisium. And with binoculars or a telescope, you'll also catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. While the same side of the Moon always faces our planet, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it travels around Earth. As a result, we see the Moon appear in different shapes over the course of a month, from slender crescents and half moons to a bright Full Moon. This repeating sequence of phases is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA staff accidentally broke a 230-foot-wide deep space antenna because they ran it on what investigators called "hero mode" — a culture that consistently called on them to step outside their training and improvise quick fixes. 

That approach helped keep the Deep Space Network's DSS-14 antenna online for years. But it also set the stage for a serious accident that caused up to $4.6 million in damage when the giant dish over-rotated and tore itself apart, according to a mishap investigation report. 

The mechanical failure happened on Sept. 16, 2025,  at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California. The dish spun too far while tracking the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter.

That mistake destroyed cabling, ruptured internal fire-suppression lines, and flooded the base structure with nearly 200,000 gallons of water. Mashable was among the first outlets to report on the accident. 

Investigators found that operators were trying to solve what looked to them like a safety-system glitch — and unknowingly disabled safeguards that prevent the antenna from moving past its limits.

When they saw water, the operators tried to park the antenna — but that only caused further destruction.

"Personnel described themselves (and were described by personnel at other sites) as 'willing to do whatever it takes to keep the antenna running,'" the NASA report says.

"Had GDSCC personnel acted with greater deliberation or shown more willingness to leave the antenna in a failed state at any point during the mishap, the undesired outcome likely would not have occurred."

The damage underscored the pressure NASA faces in keeping the aging Deep Space Network online with limited margins for error. The infrastructure operates on decades-old systems and dwindling numbers of staff who retain the necessary institutional memory.

Keeping those critical antennas running has increasingly depended upon informal protocols and workarounds, rather than fully documented procedures. 

Investigators found the Goldstone staff have often felt a cultural push to work long hours, troubleshoot during off-shifts, perform tasks outside their job descriptions, and skip any tests that might delay the antenna's return to service. 

A 70-meter antenna at the Goldstone Complex in California broke after over-rotating in September, triggering a mishap investigation. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

"GDSCC personnel frequently referred to needing to be in 'hero mode' to maintain operations," according to the report.

The dish, sometimes called the Mars Antenna, is the largest at Goldstone — as large as a Boeing 747 jet. It is capable of tracking spacecraft traveling tens of billions of miles from Earth. 

NASA's Deep Space Network is the most powerful system on Earth for communicating with spacecraft. It commands and monitors more than 40 missions through three sites in California, Spain, and Australia.

Staff work around the clock so at least one complex can always reach spacecraft as the planet rotates.

It's not just aging hardware; the network itself is overburdened. Data load has risen sharply over the past 30 years, exceeding its original capacity by 40 percent. The NASA inspector general, who acts as the federal watchdog over the agency, has repeatedly pushed for upgrades.

Under the Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Program, the agency is adding six dishes, including a new 112-foot-wide antenna in California.

"The investigation at Goldstone made clear that we must strengthen our processes,"  said Joel Montalbano, acting associate administrator for NASA's space operations, in a statement. "NASA remains focused on learning from this and modernizing systems, so DSS-14 and the broader network are ready to support our ambitious future missions."

Though no one was hurt in the accident, NASA has classified the event as a Type A mishap, based on the total cost of the damages. The antenna will remain offline to complete repairs and previously planned upgrades. The agency doesn't expect the antenna to be back in service until October 2028. 

The New Moon has now passed, meaning the lunar cycle is beginning again. Over the coming nights, the Moon will gradually become more visible in the evening sky as a thin waxing crescent starts to reappear.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, June 17, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 14% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

After several nights of darkness, there is finally some surface features visible again tonight. Without any visual aids, you'll be able to see the Mares Fecunditatis and Crisium. And with binoculars or a telescope, you'll also catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. While the same side of the Moon always faces our planet, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it travels around Earth. As a result, we see the Moon appear in different shapes over the course of a month, from slender crescents and half moons to a bright Full Moon. This repeating sequence of phases is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

During the fierce solar storms of 2024, people in places far south — places where no one expected to see auroras — snapped photos of luminous green and purple light rippling in the sky.

For the masses, they were breathtaking and magical. But inside flight control for NASA's Swift mission, seeing those images was devastating: The flaring sun was only driving a nail deeper into the spacecraft's coffin. As Earth's upper atmosphere heated and bloated, the thickened air tugged on the space telescope. 

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a telescope that has watched the universe's brightest explosions since 2004, is sinking — and fast. Instead of continuing its scientific observations into the 2030s, as once estimated, it now looks destined to fall back to Earth later this year, doomed for incineration in the atmosphere.

"To be totally honest, the idea of boosting it had occurred to us, but it seemed sufficiently far-fetched that I did not think there was any reasonable likelihood that NASA would go along with this," Brad Cenko, the mission's principal investigator, told Mashable.

But NASA will indeed go for it, full throttle. About nine months ago, the agency hired a contractor, Arizona-based Katalyst Space Technologies, to quickly throw together a rescue mission. The company's spacecraft, called LINK, will fly up, wrap its arms around the telescope, and tow it about 150 miles up into a safer orbit. That robotic mission — planned on an unseemly timeline by NASA standards — is expected to launch on a Pegasus rocket that will drop from a Northrop Grumman aircraft over the South Pacific, then ignite. If the weather and environmental conditions are good, they'll launch on June 27.

NASA has serviced the Hubble Space Telescope before with astronauts, but the Swift boosting mission is wholly different. For the first time, NASA will try to save a science mission that was never intended for repairs in space. If it works, the robotic mission could signal the end of a throwaway culture for spacecraft in favor of a new era committed to fixing and reusing. 

NASA is paying a little over $30 million for the capture, boost, and release of Swift — a fraction of the original $160 million mission that launched in 2004. That's an economical choice, Cenko said, especially when considering that building another telescope today would likely cost in the $250 to $300 million range due to inflation. 

Katalyst Space Technologies had less than nine months to plan the boosting mission. Credit: NASA / Katalyst Space Technologies infographic

Why astronomers love Swift

Astronomers say Swift, one of the few NASA mission names that isn't straining to be an acronym, has earned a second chance. The observatory hunts gamma‑ray bursts, brief flashes of high‑energy light that can outshine entire galaxies for a few seconds. In that blink of time, a single event can pour out more energy than our sun will emit over its whole lifetime. 

Sitting a few hundred miles above Earth in low orbit, Swift constantly scans a wide patch of sky for these bursts. When it spots one, the spacecraft whips around and points its X‑ray and ultraviolet instruments at the fading glow. That ability to react within a minute or two to "catch the act" is how it got its name.

In its first decade, Swift mainly chased its own discoveries. More recently, the team has figured out how to feed it alerts from other observatories, including big sky surveys scanned from the ground. That has turned Swift into a kind of first responder for cosmic fireworks, swinging toward whatever the rest of astronomy flags as urgent.

Despite its value to astronomers, the driving force behind the boosting mission isn't entirely about preserving the scientific capability.

"If that were the only story, I'm not 100 percent sure we would be here," Cenko said. "The current administration is very strongly motivated to develop the U.S. commercial space sector, and to ensure that we maintain dominance in that space sector compared to other countries."

The autonomous robotic LINK spacecraft, built by Katalyst Space Technologies, will try to rendezvous with the Swift observatory. Credit: NASA / Sophia Roberts

Why Swift needs rescuing

The problem is not Swift's cameras or detectors. Those are in great working order, though they were only intended to operate for two years. It is the invisible drag of Earth's upper atmosphere that has created a ticking clock for the mission.

When NASA launched Swift in 2004, it flew about 370 miles above the planet. Even there, a very thin smear of air acts like a brake. Over time, that drag steals speed and lets gravity pull a spacecraft down. Today, Swift has an altitude of roughly 230 miles.

To buy extra time, the team changed how Swift flew in February, angling it to reduce drag. Then, in April, they turned off the wide-angle detector that first spots gamma‑ray bursts. While those steps should slow down its fall, they've also essentially suspended the telescope's work.

Already researchers have logged dozens of missed opportunities, including exploding stars, black holes tearing apart nearby stars, flares from black holes in the Milky Way, and comets changing as they move through the inner solar system. 

"Everyone wants to be able to go and save this telescope," Kieran Wilson, Katalyst's principal investigator for the LINK spacecraft, told Mashable. "It's not something where people are like, 'Oh, well, maybe we could slip launch a couple months.' It just doesn't come up. Everyone understands the constraints, understands the hard physics of the problem, and has been really, really motivated."

How LINK will boost Swift's orbit

Nothing about the boosting mission is "normal." First, the rescue spacecraft, LINK, will drop from an airplane and light its engines midair over the ocean near the Marshall Islands. That unusual launch profile should make it easier to reach Swift's path near Earth's equator. 

Once in orbit, LINK, short for Lightweight In-space Navigation and Kinematics, will take its time closing in. The spacecraft will spend days or weeks gently adjusting its path until it flies close to Swift at nearly the same speed. Then, it will begin snapping detailed pictures of the sinking spacecraft.

What Swift looks like today is one of the biggest unknowns for the rescue operation. Its insulation has likely degraded quite a bit over the past two decades in space. Katalyst's flight team can't predict its condition, nor do they know if sturdy spots exist on the spacecraft's body to get a good grip.

When LINK does move in for the capture, people on the ground won't be steering it like a drone. Both spacecraft will be racing around Earth at about 17,000 mph. That means radio signals wouldn't be quick enough for the job. Instead, LINK will have to behave a bit like a self‑driving car. It will take rapid‑fire images, compare what it sees to its internal model of Swift, and fire small thrusters to correct its path by inches at a time.

In the last moments, three metal arms with clamps will unfold from LINK. Swift will then hand over control of its orientation to Katalyst's robot. The climb to a higher orbit could take from about a month to several months, depending on Swift's altitude when LINK grabs it, the sun's behavior, and how well the engines work.

This Northrop Grumman aircraft carries a Pegasus rocket, seen below the plane, that will drop over an ocean, light its engines midair, and launch to space. Credit: Northrop Grumman

Robots as space mechanics

If Katalyst succeeds, it will show that a relatively small robot can extend the life of a much more expensive telescope, even one that engineers never designed for maintenance. Future NASA missions might include grab handles, standard attachment rings, and replaceable parts, designed with the idea that a space mechanic could show up someday. It could mean a new era in the space economy, Wilson said.

"This is absolutely a model we want to use going forward, where spacecraft are no longer a static asset on orbit — they're no longer stuck with only what they launched with," Wilson said. "You can reposition spacecraft when they run out of propellant, boost their orbit when they're in danger of reentry, and that is something that we see as foundational to the way that space will evolve in the next few decades."

For the Swift team, the mission is more than an experiment or a demonstration. They consider themselves Swifties and have leaned into Taylor Swift fandom, swapping friendship bracelets at meetings and borrowing language from the pop star's albums. 

They're hoping it's not the end of a good 20 years, full of astronomical hits. 

"We say we're going into the 'boost era,'" Cenko said.

The New Moon has passed, and visibility will slowly be returning over the next few nights.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, June 16, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 7% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon completes one orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, moving through eight recognised phases along the way. While the same side of the Moon always faces our planet, the amount of its surface lit by the Sun changes as it travels around Earth. As a result, we see the Moon appear in different shapes over the course of a month, from slender crescents and half moons to a bright Full Moon. This repeating sequence of phases is known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

It’s the New Moon, so the Moon is basically invisible from Earth. With no light reflecting back, the sky is at its darkest right now, with no chance of doing any Moon gazing.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, June 15, the Moon phase is New Moon. Tonight, 0% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA notes that the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to orbit Earth once, and throughout that time it passes through eight distinct phases. Although we always see the same face of the Moon, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves along its orbit. This variation in sunlight is what creates the familiar progression of lunar shapes, from thin crescents to half-lit phases and the fully illuminated Full Moon. Together, these stages form what’s known as the lunar cycle.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Astronomers now have stronger evidence that mysterious "little red dots" found in the early universe could come from black holes wrapped in thick clouds of gas disguising their light.

Little red dots have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in 2022. Initially, some researchers thought they "broke cosmology," unsure how unusually mature galaxies could have formed so fast after the Big Bang, forcing scientists to rethink their understanding of the dawn of time. 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has taken a deep look at one of these strange objects, a distant source called GLIMPSE-17775. It appears so small, so compact, and so red that it defies standard classification. By studying the space object's light, a team of researchers teased out more than 40 distinct chemical features. Taken together, they gave scientists a model for what the environment inside the object must look like. 

The verdict: GLIMPSE-17775 behaves like a voracious supermassive black hole, gobbling up a meal while encased in layers of gas. The team's study was published in The Astrophysical Journal. 

"Everything fits, nothing is broken, and I think that makes the puzzle that is our universe even better," said Vasily Kokorev, lead author of the paper, in a statement. "Looking ahead, I'm eager to dive deeper and learn about what is powering the central engines of little red dots." 

Earlier studies suggested perhaps these little red dots were ordinary galaxies, just heavily altered in appearance by surrounding dust. Others proposed something more radical: supermassive black holes feeding inside dense balls of gas. The concept became known as a "black hole star." 

Scientists based the idea on broad clues, like the objects' compact size and unusual hydrogen patterns. But those alone couldn't tell them what physical processes were occurring to shape their light.

The James Webb Space Telescope observes GLIMPSE-17775, south of the Abell S1063 galaxy cluster, the bright white light in the center of this image. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / V. Kokorev / A. Pagan

Kokorev's team created a spectrum of GLIMPSE-17775, which existed about 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang, by splitting its light into its component colors. The technique can reveal the presence and absence of different elements and conditions. These new observations allowed them to test the idea of a black hole star from several different angles. 

One of the clearest clues came from the way the little red dot's light behaves. Instead of traveling directly into space, it appears to have ricocheted. That only happens in a dense cocoon of gas — far denser than what astronomers would see in an ordinary galaxy. 

At the center of that gas shell likely sits an actively feeding black hole, aka a quasar, according to the paper. As matter falls toward it, it releases energy. But instead of making a clean getaway, much of that energy gets absorbed and recycled by the surrounding gas. 

That process would naturally explain why the object appears very red and very compact. The gas changes the light before it ever reaches us.

Some researchers think the "little red dots" in the early universe may be supermassive black holes, feeding inside dense balls of gas. Credit: T. Müller / A. de Graaff / Max Planck Institute for Astronomy illustration

"When we saw the spectrum for the first time, it was like having all the pieces of a puzzle scattered on the floor," said Kokorev, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin. "Maybe a few pieces looked like nothing at first, but then a couple of them came together, and we realized that there was something there."

The study also discusses the masses of these objects. Because earlier estimates relied on measuring how fast gas moves around the black hole, those figures may be unreliable, according to the paper. In an environment of dense gas such as this, the light could become extremely distorted before it reaches telescopes.  

If that's the case, then some early-universe black holes may be smaller than they seem — just growing very quickly and shrouded in gas. That could resolve one of the biggest problems with little red dots: how something so early in cosmic history could grow to be so seemingly large.

NASA has named four astronauts to the next Artemis mission that will practice new maneuvers in space — crucial demonstrations of hardware intended to return humans to the moon's surface.

U.S. astronauts Andre Douglas, Frank Rubio, and Commander Randy Bresnik will lead the Artemis III mission, along with European Space Agency pilot Luca Parmitano. The mission is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as early as mid-2027. 

Just since February, NASA has rebuilt the Artemis III mission plan from the ground up, after a sharp course change in the moon program early this year. The space agency, under NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, now treats the flight as a fast‑tracked test in Earth orbit, rather than the United States' triumphant return to the lunar surface.

The revamped mission serves as a high-stakes dress rehearsal that aims to prove NASA and its partners can connect the Orion spacecraft and landers together in space. For the first time, NASA will coordinate a launch campaign involving multiple spacecraft. This one mission, expected to last about two weeks, will involve three separate rocket launches, two dockings in orbit, and one high-speed splashdown. 

"Think about how many spacecraft, all of which will eventually carry human beings, will be in orbit at the same time, from Dragon, Shenzhou, Soyuz, possibly Starliner, Starship, and Blue Origin landers," said Isaacman during a news conference in Houston on Tuesday. "This seems like the beginning of the future that we imagined as children. This seems like the very beginning of Earth's first Starfleet to me." 

Artemis II, which successfully looped around the moon this spring with a crew, checked out Orion's life‑support systems, navigation, and heat shield in deep space. 

But Artemis III shifts the focus from the lunar environment to space much closer to home. The new concept involves NASA launching four astronauts from Florida on the Space Launch System rocket, sending them into low-Earth orbit and having Orion dock with new commercially built landing vehicles from SpaceX and Blue Origin. Those landers will eventually function as taxis: They will carry crews down to the moon from Orion on later missions.

From left, Andre Douglas, European Space Agency pilot Luca Parmitano, Commander Randy Bresnik, and Frank Rubio will fly the Artemis III mission. Credit: NASA / Bill Stafford

Despite a massive setback for Blue Origin on May 28, NASA said both commercial partners will be part of the Artemis III mission. Blue Origin's 322-foot New Glenn rocket exploded in a fireball during a routine ground test. While the explosion ranked as one of the largest rocket test accidents in U.S. history, all personnel were safely evacuated, and no injuries were reported. 

But because the launchpad was completely destroyed, many speculated as to whether the company would be able to participate in the Artemis III orbital tests immediately after the disaster. 

"We recognize there are questions about how Blue Origin's recent anomaly impacts our plans," said Jeremy Parsons, Artemis' program manager. "NASA is stepping in and bringing all of our expertise and capabilities to bear. We are working hand-in-hand with them to meet our commitments to return our nation to the moon."

During Artemis III, engineers plan to run joint checks on air, power, propulsion, and communications, and study how the crew moves and works between vehicles. The flight will keep astronauts inside Orion longer than Artemis II, stress-test its life‑support systems more, try out new moon spacesuits, and use an upgraded heat shield on the capsule. 

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The overhaul responds to two key pressures: time and complexity. Isaacman has previously argued that the agency spent years and large sums on overly ambitious plans, allowing China, a major rival, to close the gap in deep space. China may land its first crewed mission on the moon before the United States does with the Artemis program. 

NASA now wants a simpler, repeatable setup for the mega moon rocket and spacecraft, with a more frequent launch tempo. The entire sequence of Artemis flights are intended as a step-by-step approach to make progress without undertaking too many uncertain risks. 

"There are many parts that need to come together for a space launch, and you need a launch pad, and for me that launch pad is my country, Italy," Parmitano said. "The rocket, figuratively and literally, is NASA. I'm grateful that NASA has allowed me to be part of this incredible group of people, of this crew, and for letting me fly."   

Artemis III Commander Randy Bresnik speaks at the crew announcement event at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston on June 9, 2026. Credit: Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP / Getty Images

Under the new plan, Artemis IV becomes the moon-landing mission, sending the first humans to the lunar south pole in 2028. Artemis V follows as a second surface mission that leans more toward routine stays and early moon-base construction. 

To support that shift, NASA has pressed SpaceX and Blue Origin to simplify their early lander flights, choose less demanding lunar orbits for the first landings, and fly at least one uncrewed touchdown before any astronaut steps onto the surface.        

As a symbolic gesture, Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman gave a baton to Artemis III Commander Bresnik at the announcement event. 

"While this may look like just a baton right now that's in my hand, it feels like this big, flaming Olympic torch that you — Reid, Christina, Victor, and Jeremy — lit, and the world was entranced by its flame," Bresnik said. "We, the Artemis III crew, are honored to be able to carry this torch forward, to be able to execute our mission, to make that flame burn brighter and pass it on." 

Suddenly, the Milky Way's central black hole is starting to look a little less like a weirdo. 

Astronomers have discovered a large cone-shaped void in gas surrounding Sagittarius A*, the galaxy's supermassive black hole, that could solve a longstanding mystery. 

All active black holes should blow winds or jets of material back into space while they're feeding, according to theory. That process is how supermassive black holes shape the galaxies around them. But no matter how hard astronomers have looked, they haven't seen our black hole, dubbed Sgr A* for short, pushing anything back out. 

New images from a Northwestern University-led research team now suggest this cone tunneling through a fog of cold gas is evidence of that missing wind. It was almost literally an arrow pointing back at the black hole, said Mark Gorski, who co-led the study.

"This is the first time we've had a clean enough view to see the wind's imprint," Gorski said in a statement. "We looked at the data and said, 'There it is. There is the thing that everybody's been looking for for 50 years.'"

In reality, the discovery wasn't that straightforward of an a-ha moment. Only after the team had overlaid their picture with data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory did their observations begin to make sense. That gave them confidence the odd cone wasn't just an imaging artifact, they said. 

"When you find something that no one has seen before, the first thought that runs through your mind is not 'Oh my God, we made a discovery,'" said coauthor Elena Murchikova, in a statement. "It's 'Oh my God, what's wrong with my analysis?'" 

Astronomers combined radio and X-ray data from the ALMA and Chandra-X telescopes to study the cone-shaped void near the Milky Way's central black hole. Credit: NASA / CXC / Northwestern / M. Gorski / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / ALMA / K. Arcand and P. Edmonds

Scientists believe virtually all large galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their core. These are regions millions to billions of times more massive than the sun. In fact, so much mass is packed into these small spaces that gravity becomes strong enough to prevent anything from escaping — even light. 

These black holes don't just sit around, waiting for gas, dust, and stars to fall in, but they influence how their galaxies evolve around them by sucking in material and also blowing material that comes near their boundary — called the event horizon — back out.

By taking high-resolution observations with Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array in Chile over about five years, the team was able to map cold gas near the black hole in unprecedented detail. This ALMA image is 100 times deeper and 80 times sharper than previous maps, according to the researchers.

The cone stretches one to three light-years away from the black hole. The simplest explanation after careful consideration, according to the team's findings published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, is that a fast, energetic stream of hot material has launched out of the black hole's region, shoving colder gas in its path out of the way.

The ALMA radio telescopes in Chile spent five years observing the Milky Way's central region to create high-resolution maps of surrounding cold gas. Credit: ALMA /S. Longmore et al. / ESO / D. Minniti et al.

The team determined it would take more energy than could be provided by all the stars in that area to create the conic gap. The researchers estimated the wind has probably been blowing for 20,000 years or more.

Based on the image, the direction of Sgr A*'s wind seems somewhat tilted and uneven, which suggests it may be weak and mangled by surrounding gas as it travels.

How this feature has escaped the notice of previous researchers is not too surprising, the researchers said. In order to see into our own galaxy's center, astronomers have to look through the plane of the Milky Way, which is thick with gas, dust, and ionized structures. Sgr A* may also be in a quieter lull, making the distant activity harder to spot.  

Some scientists have previously suggested that the lack of wind or jets could mean Sgr A* is an exotic black hole — an outlier among hundreds of billions of others like it. If anything, Murchikova is now convinced of the opposite. 

"It shows that our black hole is not unique, and our place in the universe is not unique," she said.

Looking up at the Moon tonight and wondering what exactly you're looking at? Wonder no more, this is what you can see.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, June 7, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 62% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without visual aids you should be able to spot the Oceanus Procellarum, Kepler Crater, and the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also spot the Gassendi Crater, the Mare Humorum, and the Alphonsus Crater. And finally, with a telescope you'll also see the Apollo 12 landing spot, the Schiller Crater, and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon completes one full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it moves through a sequence of eight phases. Even though the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight we can see changes as it travels along its path. This shifting light is what produces the lunar shapes, ranging from slim crescents to half-lit Moons and the bright Full Moon. All of these stages together make up the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

It's day 20 of the lunar cycle. The lunar cycle is the Moon's journey around Earth, which takes roughly 29.5 days. As it moves, the amount of sunlight we see reflected from its surface changes, creating either crescent, half or full moons.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, June 6, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 71% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without visual aids you should be able to spot the Mares Imbrium and Vaporum as well as the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also spot the Grimaldi Basin, the Mare Humorum, and the Apennine Mountains. And finally, with a telescope you'll also see the Apollo 14 and 16 landing spots and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon completes one full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it moves through a sequence of eight phases. Even though the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight we can see changes as it travels along its path. This shifting light is what produces the lunar shapes, ranging from slim crescents to half-lit Moons and the bright Full Moon. All of these stages together make up the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA astronauts briefly sheltered in their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Friday during a Russian repair attempt on a leaky transfer tunnel of the International Space Station. 

The work was later halted for further analysis, and the crew resumed their normal tasks on the space station, which orbits about 250 miles above Earth.

The cracks in the Zvezda service module's transfer tunnel, known as PrK, are the latest sign of aging infrastructure at the 26‑year‑old outpost, which has already weathered a separate coolant leak on a docked Soyuz spacecraft. These incidents have forced NASA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency to coordinate on protecting the crew and keeping the station operational.

The PrK tunnel on Russia's Zvezda service module "has suffered from cracks and leaks for some time, and has been mitigated by Roscosmos as much as possible to date," NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said in a statement on X. She said the cracks "have always been a concern that NASA watches very closely."

New leaks led Roscosmos to start a more extensive structural repair on June 5, prompting NASA to direct the four Crew‑12 astronauts — Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Russia's Andrey Fedyaev, and Europe's Sophie Adenot — and NASA's Chris Williams, who flew to the space station separately in November 2025, to take shelter inside the Dragon capsule as a safety precaution. 

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In an update about one hour later, Stevens said Roscosmos had paused the repair effort to take measurements and assess the data. With hands‑on work interrupted, NASA told the crew they could go back to business as usual.

"We continue to work with our Russian counterparts, along with the rest of the international community that supports the space station, to arrive at a more permanent resolution," she said, adding that NASA intends to work with Roscosmos on a collaborative approach to address the leaks.

In a separate incident involving different hardware about 3.5 years ago, NASA and Roscosmos juggled a coolant leak on the Soyuz MS‑22 spacecraft docked to the station, which investigators attributed to a likely micrometeoroid strike on an external radiator line. Russia launched a replacement Soyuz to get the crew home. 

NASA plans to operate the space station through 2030 before deorbiting it into the Pacific Ocean, while Roscosmos has committed to the partnership until at least 2028. Both agencies plan to transition to new destinations.

With clear skies tonight, you'll be able to pick out a few details on the Moon’s surface. But what exactly are you looking at? With the help of NASA's Daily Moon Guide, we have the answers.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, June 5, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 79% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without visual aids you should be able to spot the Mares Imbrium and Vaporum as well as the Tycho Crater . If you have binoculars you'll also spot the Grimaldi Basin, and the Gassendi and Alphonsus Craters. And finally, with a telescope you'll also see the Apollo 16 landing spot and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon completes one full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it moves through a sequence of eight phases. Even though the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight we can see changes as it travels along its path. This shifting light is what produces the lunar shapes, ranging from slim crescents to half-lit Moons and the bright Full Moon. All of these stages together make up the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

If the sky is clear where you are tonight, you’ll likely be able to make out some surface features on the Moon. But what are they? Keep reading to find out.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, June 4, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 87% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need fancy gear to spot craters or other features on the Moon's surface, if it's a clear enough night, your naked eye should be enough. In fact, without visual aids you should be able to spot the Mare Serenitatis, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Mare Tranquillitatis. If you have binoculars you'll also spot the Grimaldi Basin, Alps Mountains, and the Posidonus Crater. If you have a telescope, set this up to see all this plus the Apollo 15 and 16 landing spots and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon completes one full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it moves through a sequence of eight phases. Even though the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight we can see changes as it travels along its path. This shifting light is what produces the lunar shapes, ranging from slim crescents to half-lit Moons and the bright Full Moon. All of these stages together make up the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

A healthy NASA orbiter disappeared as usual behind Mars back in December. When the spacecraft reemerged from the other side, it was never the same again.

The U.S. space agency announced June 3 that the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, aka Maven, is over, after a review board determined the orbiter that has circled Mars for over 11 years is now unreachable.

Though all of Maven's systems were normal before it rounded the bend on Dec. 6, 2025, something mysterious happened to the spacecraft when it slipped out of view. A snippet of data transmitted to Earth indicates Maven began rapidly tumbling. While mission control would normally only lose contact with the spacecraft for 20 to 30 minutes when it passed behind Mars, the team never regained its signal. 

NASA's anomaly review board, which convened in February, determined this erratic rotation, coupled with dwindling battery power, meant there was no viable way to recover Maven. At a teleconference Wednesday, officials delivered something of a eulogy to the mission, which continued 10 years longer than the team had originally planned.

"I think the team has really experienced the loss of a loved one with the end of the mission here," said project manager Mike Moreau from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Maven's decommissioning closes a chapter in Mars exploration: NASA has lost a key workhorse that both rewrote scientists' understanding of the Martian atmosphere and quietly hauled huge volumes of data home for rovers on the ground.

Whether a meteor is to blame for Maven's demise is not known right now. NASA has yet to conclude its investigation into the root cause for the incident. The agency is expected to deliver a final report later in the year.

The Maven orbiter captured ultraviolet views of Mars in 2023. Credit: NASA / LASP / CU Boulder

Arriving at Mars in September 2014, Maven has focused on "atmospheric escape" — the leak of gas from the top of Mars' atmosphere into space. Its measurements showed that this surges during solar storms, when bursts of energy and particles erupt from the sun. A major space‑weather event in May 2024, one of the strongest seen at Mars in 20 years, triggered a torrent of particles that stripped away gas and lit up the planet with glowing auroras.

"We now have a better understanding of atmospheric escape at Mars than at any other planet, including Earth," said Shannon Curry, Maven's principal investigator, based at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Maven found several kinds of auroras at Mars and helped the Perseverance rover capture the first visible‑light aurora from the surface, giving scientists a sense of what astronauts might see with their own eyes. The orbiter also showed how a planet‑wide dust storm in 2018 boosted the loss of water to space, tying together dust, climate, and the fate of Mars' ancient oceans.

One of Maven's most important results involved a process called "sputtering." Put simply, charged particles slam into the upper atmosphere and knock neutral atoms into space, like a cannonball splashing water out of a pool. This process has likely stripped Mars' atmosphere for billions of years, with implications for other planets.

The mission also made some surprise finds. Maven’s particle detector picked up hard X‑rays from a distant black hole system known as Scorpius X‑1, and the team used that odd signal to learn more about the density of Mars' upper atmosphere. 

Beyond science, Maven played a vital behind‑the‑scenes role as a communications relay. The spacecraft passed data between Earth and surface missions such as Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance. Though it handled only about 8 percent of all relay sessions, it delivered nearly 18 percent of the total data, according to NASA, thanks in part to a new coding scheme that boosted how much information it could send during each contact. At one point, Maven set the solar system record for most data returned in a single relay session.

For now, Maven will remain in a stretched‑out orbit around Mars. NASA expects the dead spacecraft to stay in space for 50 to 100 years before the orbit naturally shrinks and it falls into Mars' atmosphere. Officials say it doesn't threaten other orbiters circling the Red Planet.

To make up for Maven's lost relay capacity, Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and European orbiters have adjusted their operations. NASA also plans a new Mars Telecommunications Network in the 2030s, with help from commercial partners, to provide more robust communications and navigation services for future robotic and human missions.

For the people who worked on Maven, though, the loss feels personal. Curry said the team was "broken up" about it. When asked what she'd inscribe on the orbiter's tombstone, she didn't hesitate with her answer: 

"Best Mars mission ever." 

The Moon may look like it is, but it's not full anymore. In fact, it's a few days past it. It's still mostly lit up, however, so if you're hoping to catch a glimpse of some features on its surface, you're more than in luck.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, June 3, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 92% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you'll be able to spot the Kepler Crater, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Mare Vaporum. If you have binoculars you'll also spot the Clavius Crater, Mare Humorum, and the Alphonsus Crater. If you have a telescope, set this up to see all this plus the Apollo 14 landing spot, Descartes Highlands, and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon completes one full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it moves through a sequence of eight phases. Even though the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight we can see changes as it travels along its path. This shifting light is what produces the lunar shapes, ranging from slim crescents to half-lit Moons and the bright Full Moon. All of these stages together make up the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Astronomers have spent decades listening for radio signals from hot giant planets in space, suspecting these alien worlds would have strong magnetic fields like Jupiter to produce them.

Mostly, the scientists heard nothing. 

Some theories have predicted distant exoplanets to have monster magnetic fields hundreds of times stronger than Earth's, so their absence has been baffling. But new findings suggest maybe the silence itself is the clue. Maybe those planets don't have enormous magnetic fields after all. 

For the first time, scientists have inferred the strength of magnetic fields around exoplanets, and they did so in a wholly unexpected way. The results may help astronomers better understand how smaller, potentially habitable worlds make and keep their own magnetic fields.

"This breakthrough opens a completely new window on exoplanet research," said Julia Seidel, an astronomer at the Laboratoire Lagrange in France and lead author of the work, in a statement. "It's the first time we can compare the magnetic environments of other worlds — a key step toward ultimately understanding which planets can stay alive, keep their water, and perhaps even, one day, host life as we know it." 

The study, published in Nature Astronomy, didn't start out as a quest to measure alien magnetic fields. The scientists were actually looking at wind behavior and how it differs across hot planets. 

The team measured wind speeds in the planets' atmospheres by studying how their iron content absorbed starlight: Faster winds shift the light more, while slower winds shift it less.  

Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile and the National Science Foundation's Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, the researchers homed in on seven ultra-hot gas giant planets that orbit so close to their stars that temperatures soar above 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 

All of the planets in the sample group had a side much hotter than the other because one hemisphere always faces its star. 

The temperature difference between the sides creates a climate completely different from Earth's, along with extremely powerful winds. The speeds they found ranged from about 4,500 to 15,500 mph. For comparison, the fastest winds known on Jupiter top off around 1,000 mph.

When the research team looked at how the speeds varied with planet temperature, they saw a counterintuitive trend: the hotter the planet, the slower the wind. 

"All things being equal, hot planets have more energy to accelerate the winds," said Vivien Parmentier, a coauthor and professor at Laboratoire Lagrange, in a statement.

The team used data from an instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile, along with the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, for their measurements. Credit: J.L. Dauvergne / G. Hüdepohl / ESO

The simplest explanation for that unexpected result is that global magnetic fields increasingly put on the brakes in those atmospheres. Given that magnetism resists the flow of the gas, it allows the researchers to then infer the strength of the magnetic field in each of the seven planets. 

The team estimated that these magnetic fields are probably in the same ballpark as those found around gas giants in our own solar system — not, as some have thought, tens to hundreds of times stronger than Jupiter's. This means the mysterious lack of radio signals coming from hot exoplanets may simply fit with weaker magnetic fields. 

Though no one is looking for life on ultra-hot gas giants, the study of their magnetic fields may help scientists understand how smaller rocky planets make and sustain their own magnetism. Magnetic fields matter because they, along with atmospheres, act as shields against harmful radiation from host stars. 

Not only is the magnetic environment likely affecting wind speeds for these distant planets, but it could also enhance their light shows. On Earth, our magnetic field guides solar particles toward the North and South poles, slamming them into gases in the air to produce luminous auroras. 

"I like to imagine that some of these worlds have a sky filled … with vast curtains of colorful light," said coauthor Bibiana Prinoth, based at ESO in Germany, in a statement, "dancing across a planet that's half in perpetual day and half in endless night."

The Moon has now passed its full stage, so it will appear a little less illuminated each night. This gradual decrease in visibility will continue until the New Moon arrives, marking the start of a new lunar cycle.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, June 2, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 97% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Copernicus Crater, and the Mare Tranquillitatis. If you have binoculars you'll be able to see these as well as catching a glimpse of the Clavius Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Alps Mountains. Finally, with a telescope will help you see the Fra Mauro Highlands and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Full Moon has now passed, meaning with each night visibility will get smaller. This will occur until we reach the New Moon. This phase is part of the lunar cycle, a roughly 29.5-day journey the Moon makes around Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, June 1, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 97% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

So, what can you see? Without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Copernicus Crater, and the Mare Tranquillitatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Clavius Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Alps Mountains. Finally, with a telescope will help you see the Fra Mauro Highlands and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

It's the Full Moon tonight, and the second this month. This means it is a monthly Blue Moon, which occurs roughly every two or three years.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 31, the Moon phase is Full Moon. Tonight, 100% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mare Vaporum, Copernicus Crater, and the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Grimaldi Basin, Posidonus Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. Finally, if you really want to see more, a telescope will help you see the Apollo 14 landing spot, the Linne Crater, and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

May is double the fun for Full Moon and space fans because we’re getting two in one month. The first took place on May 1 and the second will be on May 31. This phenomenon is called a Blue Moon. And no, that doesn’t mean it’ll actually turn the color blue, it’s just a somewhat rare occurrence. You might say, “once in a blue moon”...

What is a Blue Moon?

According to NASA, a Blue Moon is when a full moon shows up twice within the same calendar month. The lunar cycle (the process of the Moon orbiting the Earth) lasts about 29 and a half days, which is slightly shorter than most months. This means that every so often the timing lines up like it does in May, with a full moon right at the start of the month and another at the end. It’s not especially common, only happening roughly every couple of years. This is a monthly Blue Moon.

There are also seasonal Blue Moons. These occur when four full moons fall all within one season, instead of three which is what usually happens.

When is the Blue Moon in 2026?

The Blue Moon in 2026 will occur on May 31. According to Time and Date, it will peak around 4:45 a.m. ET.

How often does a Blue Moon occur?

Blue Moons are fairly uncommon, as the saying goes. NASA says they occur roughly every two or three years.

When is the next Blue Moon?

Royal Museums Greenwich tells us that the next Blue Moon will be May 20, 2027. This will be a seasonal Blue Moon.

Tomorrow is the Full Moon, and it's also a monthly Blue Moon, the occurrence of two Full Moons within one month.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 30, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 99% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mare Vaporum, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Mare Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Mare Frigoris, Apennine Mountains, and the Clavius Crater. Finally, if you really want to see more, a telescope will help you see the Apollo 12 and 17 landing spots, and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

May is an exciting month for Moon watchers, as it features two Full Moons instead of the usual one. The first occurred on May 1, the Flower Moon, and the second is set to appear on May 31.

When a month contains two Full Moons, the second one is known as a “Blue Moon." Don't worry, you're not going to look up and see a literal blue colored moon in the sky, the name just refers to its rarity.

Intrigued? Keep reading to find out more about the second of this month’s Full Moons.

When is the May full moon?

The Full Moon will occur on Sunday, May 31. Time and Date estimates it will peak at 4:45 a.m. ET.

What is the May full moon called?

This Moon is simply known as a Blue Moon, perhaps a nod to the famous saying...

These occur when there are two Full Moons in the same month. Because the lunar cycle is just under 30 days, the timing occasionally lines up like this, with one Full Moon at the start of the month and another at the end. It’s fairly rare, only coming around every couple of years, NASA says. This is known as a monthly Blue Moon.

There’s also something called a seasonal Blue Moon, which is when a season has four Full Moons instead of the usual three.

When is the next full moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are the lunar phases?

The Moon goes through eight phases as it orbits Earth over about 29 and a half days. At each point, the Sun lights up a different part of it from our perspective, even though we always see the same side. As it moves along its path, the lit portion grows and shrinks, shifting from full brightness to partial glow and back again.The phases are:

• New Moon — The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (so, we don't see anything).

• Waxing Crescent — A small sliver of light appears on the right side

• First Quarter — Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

• Waxing Gibbous — More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

• Full Moon — The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

• Waning Gibbous — The moon starts losing light on the right side

• Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) — Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

• Waning Crescent — A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

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Based on a strange clue, astronomers have found a collection of young red dwarf stars in space that may have gobbled up rocky planets — perhaps similar worlds to Earth.  

Like sniffing a teenager's breath for alcohol or cigarette smoke, researchers noticed the stars had more lithium in their atmospheres than they should. That could mean they still had the stench of their last meal on them. 

A red dwarf is a small, cool type of star, and lithium is a lightweight chemical that stars eventually destroy through nuclear reactions. In stars like these, lithium usually disappears early in life because the stars' hot interiors incinerate it. By the time these stars reach adolescence — around 50 to 200 million years old — astronomers expect little to no trace of lithium.

But a team found six stars out of thousands surveyed that broke the rules in a new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. These stars contained much more lithium than other stars of the same age in their clusters, said Robin Jeffries, lead author of the paper, from Keele University in the United Kingdom. The lithium-rich stars made up only about 2 to 3 percent of stars in that temperature range, making them rare but not flukes.  

"Even a small amount of lithium stands out clearly in these stars — a bit like throwing paint onto a blank canvas," Jeffries said in a statement. 

Astronomers already knew stars could swallow planets, but the evidence has usually come from faint, debatable chemical detections. This study may have found a much clearer signal: young red dwarf stars somehow regained lithium, likely by swallowing several Earths' worth of rocky planet material that contains the element. 

The findings suggest planetary systems — especially around red dwarfs — may go through a far more tumultuous childhood than astronomers realized. Instead of forming neatly and staying put, rocky worlds may regularly collide, scatter, or spiral into their stars during the first few hundred million years. 

That matters because red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Milky Way and host vast numbers of Earth-size planets, including many in potentially habitable zones, where temperatures are not too hot or cold for liquid water on their surfaces. If those rocky exoplanets are sometimes eaten by their stars, that may mean some Earth-like worlds die before they could have a chance to spark life. 

Researchers identified the red dwarfs with high lithium levels from the Gaia-ESO Spectroscopic Survey, conducted using the FLAMES instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Credit: ESO / H.H.Heyer

Other than the presence of lithium, the stars looked normal. They sat in the same locations as other cluster members, moved through space the same way, and appeared to be about the same age. That ruled out the possibility that they were just younger stars mixed into the sample.  

The researchers did consider other explanations for the chemical. One idea involved magnetic activity because strong magnetic fields and starspots can sometimes slow lithium destruction in young stars. But that explanation wasn't a good fit because most of the lithium-rich stars spun slowly; fast rotation usually links to stronger magnetic activity.  

Another idea suggested the stars kept feasting from their birth disks for an inordinate length of time. But the team thought that scenario probably wouldn't preserve enough lithium. That left planet swallowing as the leading explanation. Rocky planets contain lithium, so devouring them would temporarily spike the lithium level in the star's outer layers.  

The team estimated each star may have swallowed material equal to about three to 10 Earths.  

That may sound extreme, but astronomers already know many red dwarf stars host compact systems packed with rocky planets. Computer simulations also show that young planetary systems often become chaotic. Gravitational interactions can fling planets inward until the star engulfs them.  

Researchers think these events likely happened after the stars stopped rapidly destroying lithium. Depending on each star's mass and inner workings, their lithium signatures could now remain for millions of years. 

A Blue Origin New Glenn spaceship has exploded, disappearing in a massive ball of fire during a test on Thursday night. Fortunately, no injuries have been reported, but it's an expensive setback for Jeff Bezos' space company. 

The New Glenn rocket had been undergoing a static hot-fire test at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at the time of the explosion. A static hot-fire test is a trial run of the rocket's launch system, involving fuelling up the vehicle and briefly firing all its engines without disengaging the launch mount. 

Unfortunately, this trial didn't go as planned. At approximately 9 p.m. ET the rocket "experienced an anomaly," which is Blue Origin-speak for "rapid unscheduled disassembly," which is SpaceX-speak for "exploded in a giant fireball." SpaceX suffered a similar accident last June, when its Starship spacecraft also exploded during a static fire test.

One first stage New Glenn rocket reportedly costs over $100 million to build.

The explosion was caught on camera by Spaceflight Now and NASA Spaceflight.

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"We experienced an anomaly during today's hotfire test," the official Blue Origin X account posted shortly after the explosion. "All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more."

Bezos reiterated that all personnel were safe in a post from his personal X account, and said that an investigation into the incident is now underway.

"It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it," Bezos wrote. "Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it."

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New Glenn is Blue Origin's attempt at building a reusable orbital rocket. On Wednesday, the company announced that New Glenn's fourth launch would place 48 Amazon Leo satellites into orbit, with further details to be revealed at a later date.

We're just a few nights away from the Blue Moon, so there's plenty surface features to spot on the Moon tonight. But what are they? Keep reading to find out.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 91% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need visual aids to be able to moon gaze, especially if its a clear night. With just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Kepler Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Posidonius Crater, Archimedes Crater, and the Clavius Crater. If you have a telescope, you'll see the Caucasus Mountains, Descartes Highlands, and the Schiller Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is big and bright in the sky tonight, so what can you see? With the help of NASA's Daily Moon Guide, keep reading to find out.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 28, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 91% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need visual aids to be able to moon gaze, especially if its a clear night. With just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mares Imbrium and Vaporum, and the Kepler Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Posidonius Crater, Alphonsus Crater, and the Clavius Crater. If you have a telescope, you'll see the Apollo 11, 14, and 17 landing spots.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Right now astronomers are dealing with their own chicken-and-egg conundrum: Which came first, the galaxy or the big black hole inside it? 

Astronomers often estimate the weight of a black hole by using the brightness and width of certain light signals in space coming from hot gas. 

Some researchers have argued those methods severely exaggerate the masses of strange "little red dots" in the early universe. Since their discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, what they actually are has divided the community: Some think they contain growing black holes; others argue the black holes might be much smaller than they seem — or, might not exist at all. 

For the first time, a team took a direct measurement of a little red dot, Abell2744-QSO1, and found that not only were the earlier estimates pretty spot on, but also, the object almost certainly contains an enormous black hole, roughly 50 million times heavier than the sun. 

Then the study got weird. 

Normally, galaxies and their central black holes grow together: Big galaxy equals big black hole. But QSO1 barely seems to have a galaxy at all. The black hole may outweigh all the stars around it combined.  

"To our knowledge, this … makes QSO1 the most 'naked' massive [black hole] ever found," the authors wrote in their Nature paper. "This demonstrates the possibility of [black hole] primacy, that is, [black holes] forming and growing earlier than their host galaxy." 

To directly measure the object's mass, the researchers mapped the motion of glowing gas around QSO1's center. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / L. Furtak et al / A. Pagan

How astronomers directly measured it

Astronomers see QSO1 as it existed only about 700 million years after the Big Bang because of its extreme distance. 

To directly measure the object's mass, the researchers mapped the motion of glowing gas around QSO1's center. Gas near a massive object moves faster because gravity pulls harder on it. The team found that QSO1's gas rotated in a way that matched what physicists expect around a compact, extremely massive object.  

The researchers proceeded to test other explanations — like whether a tightly packed bundle of stars sat in the center instead of a black hole — but the numbers just didn't work. To explain the observations without a black hole, the stars would need to squeeze into an impossibly small area — much denser than known star clusters.  

A black hole is an area in space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape it. A supermassive black hole is the same but on a vastly larger scale, containing millions or billions of times the sun's mass. The black hole at the center of the Milky Way, called Sagittarius A*, weighs roughly 4 million suns. Messier 87, the galaxy famous for providing the first direct image of a black hole, is as massive as 6.5 billion suns.

The James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers discover loads of "little red dots" in the early universe. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / D. Kocevski

Why they call it "naked"

The team describes QSO1 as a "naked" black hole because it appears to be sitting in a vacant, primitive environment — perhaps before a normal galaxy fully formed around it. 

Scientists still don't know how the first supermassive black holes formed so quickly after the Big Bang. The usual models for how galaxies grow struggle to explain these extreme cases. 

One idea is that a massive gas cloud collapsed directly into a black hole extremely early in cosmic history. Another concept scientists consider is that some kind of original black hole formed almost at the beginning of time, possibly within the first second. 

What's becoming clear is that some black holes were enormous from the get-go, somehow able to form without a gigantic host galaxy to feed them or a phase of many massive stars collapsing and merging, said Roberto Maiolino, a coauthor from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, in a statement.

"It’s a paradigm shift," Maiolino said, "a total revisiting of the classical scenarios of how black holes form and grow."

NASA has started locking in the first missions it says will turn the moon's south pole into a place where astronauts can actually stay and work.

The U.S. space agency announced Tuesday that three initial moon base-building missions this year will send cargo and vehicles for moving crews across the surface to the lunar south pole. The work builds on the recent Artemis II crewed flight around the moon and sets up a busier end to this decade, when astronauts start spending more time on the lunar surface.

The accelerated plan unfolds amid a broader rivalry with China, which has mounted a series of lunar missions and sketched out a long‑term research station for its own astronauts, known as taikonauts. Both countries now see the moon as the next stage for human exploration and a race for leadership in deep space.

China has its first human landing in its crosshairs and could beat NASA back to the surface of the moon. The United States' last crewed landing occurred in 1972, and no other nation has ever put boots on the lunar ground. Right now, NASA is targeting a landing of its Artemis IV mission in late 2028. 

"What we are embarking upon is extremely challenging, and we know so little from what is a combined 80 hours of lunar astronaut EVA time across the Apollo missions, and that was more than a half-century ago. So we are not jumping right into the glass-dome moon base," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in Washington during a news briefing. "We are leveraging the NASA playbook from the 1960s, figuring out what works and what doesn't, in this epic science of survival."

The moon base's construction at the south pole is split into three phases. First, it focuses on making landings reliable, trying out ways to survive the brutal polar environment, and delivering an initial trickle of cargo. Next, NASA and its partners add bigger power systems, more cargo runs, and, eventually, places where astronauts can live and work for longer stretches.

In the final phase, heavy cargo versions of commercial landers haul larger hardware — habitats, bigger power plants, more capable rovers, and science instruments — so astronauts can assemble the base over dozens of flights.

The moon base push comes as a clear pivot from NASA's earlier plan. Until recently, the agency's roadmap leaned heavily on Gateway, a small space station proposal that would have orbited the moon rather than established an outpost on the ground. Leaders now say they will shift their funding and workforce toward the base effort and look for ways to reuse some Gateway components.

The south pole sits at the center of the new strategy. Craters there stay in permanent shadow and likely hold frozen water. Nearby ridges can get sunlight for most of the lunar day. Water could supply drinking water, oxygen, and even rocket fuel. Steady light makes solar power easier. NASA wants to learn how to run a base in this region before it sends people on months‑long trips to Mars.

"The moon base is as beautiful as it is hostile," Isaacman said. "We go for the technology we will pioneer to get there, the science, and all that we will learn that will make life better here on Earth."

The first big step is Moon Base I, which will fly Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander to a spot NASA calls Shackleton Connecting Ridge near the rim of Shackleton crater. The mission, targeted for launch no earlier than fall 2026, will carry NASA instruments, including stereo cameras to watch how rocket exhaust throws lunar dust and rocks and a laser reflector that helps orbiting spacecraft pinpoint their exact location using bounced laser light. NASA says this flight will cut risk for crewed Artemis landings.

Two more missions follow. Moon Base II, planned for launch later this year, will ride on Astrobotic's Griffin lander and deliver more than 1,100 pounds of cargo, including Astrolab's FLIP rover, to shake out early mobility systems. Moon Base III, also targeted for this year, will fly on Intuitive Machines' Nova‑C Trinity lander and carry the Lunar Vertex science package to study strange bright "swirl" markings on the surface, along with instruments from the European Space Agency and South Korea's astronomy institute.

NASA has begun to stage missions intended to deliver hardware and vehicles to the lunar south pole for the construction of a moon base. Credit: NASA illustration

To help crews and robots get around, NASA picked two companies to build lunar terrain vehicles — essentially moon‑ready utility trucks. The agency awarded about $219 million to Astrolab and $220 million to Lunar Outpost for the first phase of these rovers, which it wants operating by 2028. Astrolab's CLV‑1 rover weighs about 2,000 pounds in its stowed form, carries two astronauts plus cargo, and can top 6 mph on flat ground. Lunar Outpost's Pegasus rover can drive for up to a year, run under manual, remote, or autonomous control, and reach more than 9 mph.

NASA also plans a hopping‑drone mission, called Moonfall. In 2028, a Moonfall flight will send four small drones that make short hops across the south pole, then settle in and keep working for several months through the harsh lunar night. They will scout rough terrain, search for signs of buried ice, and beam back sharp images that help later landers avoid hazards. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California leads the drone design, and Firefly Aerospace will build the spacecraft that ferries them from Earth orbit to the Moon.

All of this plugs into the broader Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the surface and then push on to Mars. Artemis III, targeted for mid‑2027, will test more of the pieces the moon base needs, including docking with commercial landers. 

NASA officials say they do not know yet exactly where a long‑term base will sit or what it will look like. For now, they want many landers, rovers, and drones to explore different ridges and craters, then gradually build up something more like a small lunar neighborhood spread across a wide area, said Carlos García-Galán, the program executive for the moon base.

"With crews coming to the surface twice a year, we can expand the time that they can expend there before they come back home," said García-Galán. "Eventually, when we've matched the assets, habitation modules, with the logistics and all the things to move the logistics around, then we'll be able to say, 'Hey, we're permanently here, and we're not giving it up.'"

SpaceX launched Flight Test 12 of its reusable Starship Version 3 rocket from Starbase in South Texas. The mission included deploying 22 Starlink satellite dummies, including one carrying a camera that captured views of Starship’s heat shield during flight. The test ended dramatically as SpaceX continued pushing development of the massive rocket system.

A one‑legged robot that jumps instead of rolls could help scientists explore the icy geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus, sampling material from a hidden ocean that may be friendly to life.

The early mission concept, known as LEAP — short for Legged Exploration Across the Plain — imagines a robot about one-foot tall and weighing roughly 2 pounds. Rather than driving like a Mars rover, LEAP would use a spring‑driven leg, a pair of wheels, and internal spinning "reaction wheels" to roll, tip itself upright, and launch into long, arcing hops.

Funded by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program, the LEAP project builds on a real-world prototype, called SALTO. Though it looks like a little pogo stick — or Pixar's boinging lamp — its jumping action actually takes inspiration from squirrels. (If that's not cute enough, imagine scientists collecting data from squirrels with high-speed cameras while the critters traverse a homemade parkour course.) The researchers published their results in Science Robotics last year.

Whether the hopping robot ever reaches Saturn will depend on mission choices still years away. But you can watch the little robot do its thing in a new video just released by NASA further down in this story. 

Enceladus has become a prime target in the search for life beyond Earth. Beneath its bright ice crust lies a global ocean. Near the south pole, deep fractures nicknamed "tiger stripes" vent that water into space as plumes of ice grains and gas. Those jets give scientists a rare advantage in the outer solar system: They can sample ocean material without drilling through miles of ice.

Reaching those jets is not straightforward. The region around them looks fractured and uneven, with steep ridges, broken ice fields, and powdery material. Other options, like aircraft, have limits as well, said Justin Yim, a mechanical science and engineering assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Conventional rovers may struggle to navigate this rugged terrain. Flying poses its own challenges," said Yim at the 2025 NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts symposium. "Enceladus has no atmosphere, and the use of rocket-based propulsion [would risk] contaminating samples. It is in this context that we find jumping to be uniquely promising."

Because Enceladus has extremely weak gravity — about one-eightieth of Earth's — a relatively small push can send an object traveling far. Researchers estimate LEAP could travel roughly 560 feet — close to the length of two American football fields — in a single hop and rise about 300 feet into the air.

Each jump would play out in slow motion compared with Earth. That long airtime is central to the design. It would allow the robot to pass directly through a plume while in flight. A single hop could last close to a minute, with several seconds spent inside the icy spray.

During that time, onboard instruments could analyze ice particles, measure composition, and capture data on how the plume behaves. Contrary to popular belief, more legs wouldn't necessarily improve its jumping performance, Yim says.  

"One is a great number for jumping, particularly because it has this great advantage of allowing you to concentrate your actuation in one very powerful and simpler design," he said at the symposium last year. "Multiple legs give you a lot of benefits for doing things like sitting or standing on the ground, but you could do those equally well with wheels."

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LEAP's two wheels and one leg give it three points of contact, which makes the robot stable in that position as well, he said.

The robot would likely ride to Enceladus aboard a larger spacecraft that first orbits the moon and then lands, a setup often described as an Orbilander. From that base, LEAP could deploy, make repeated jumps between vents, and go beyond the landing zone.

But before any mission becomes real, engineers still need to demonstrate that the system can survive Enceladus' extreme cold, which reaches about minus -330 degrees Fahrenheit, and test how its foot behaves on unfamiliar ice. Most development will have to happen through simulations and lab testing.

"It's going to be difficult to get the same type of conditions we'll have on Enceladus," Yim said. "It's extremely, extremely cold, and the type of ice particles we'll encounter there are probably very different from what we'd see in natural environments on Earth."

The Moon is brighter again tonight, with most of its surface now illuminated as we head towards the Full Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 25, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 69% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

When you look up tonight, without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis, as well as the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Clavius Crater. Finally, with a telescope you'll see the Apollo 16 and 17 landing spots and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is a little brighter tonight, with just over half its surface lit up as it keeps moving through the lunar cycle.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 24, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 59% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need visual aids to look at the Moon. In fact, when you look up you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Mare Nectaris. Finally, with a telescope you'll see the Apollo 16 landing spot, the Linne Crater, and the Rupes Altai.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Tonight marks the First Quarter Moon, when roughly half of the Moon’s visible face is illuminated.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 23, the Moon phase is First Quarter. Tonight, 48% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion and Posidonius Craters, and finally, a telescope will reveal the Apollo 11, 16, and 17 landing spots.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is nearing its First Quarter phase tonight, meaning almost half of its visible surface is now illuminated as it continues its monthly journey around Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 22, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 37% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, and a telescope will reveal the Apollo 11 and 17 landing spots.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA's Psyche spacecraft just snapped some unusual new views of Mars that may require cocking your head sideways.

These space images can play tricks on your brain. At first glance, the bright white feature looks less like a polar ice cap and more like the eye of a storm or a cloud bank hanging off the edge of Mars. But that glowing patch is actually the planet's frozen south pole. Because Psyche approached the Red Planet from a steep angle during its May 15 flyby, the familiar orientation has shifted dramatically here, pushing the south pole to the side of the frame instead of the bottom.

The photos, captured as the spacecraft used Mars for a gravity assist on its way toward the asteroid belt, offer the sharpest look at the water ice-rich south polar cap. The frozen region stretches more than 430 miles across, and Psyche photographed it at a resolution of just over a half-mile per pixel.

The flyby itself was more than just a photo op. Psyche passed within 2,864 miles of the Martian surface, using the planet to boost its speed by roughly 1,000 mph and redirect its path toward the asteroid Psyche, a metal-rich object orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.

Scientists are especially interested in Mars' south polar cap because researchers still debate what may lie beneath it. Radar observations have hinted at possible underground liquid water under the ice, while newer studies suggest the signals could instead come from buried rock or dust layers.

"This new data won't settle the debate," said Gareth Morgan, first author on research that was published six months ago about the ice cap, but "it makes it very hard to support the idea of a liquid water lake."

The mystery has kept the region under close scrutiny for years. In 2018, scientists working with the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter announced evidence that suggested it may have a buried lake under nearly a mile of ice. Because liquid water is considered one of the key ingredients for life, the juicy finding immediately drew global attention.

But newer observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter complicated the picture. Using a more powerful radar technique, researchers revisited the same region and found weaker signals than expected for liquid water. Some scientists now suspect the readings point to smooth rock layers or ancient lava flows trapped beneath the ice.

NASA's Psyche captured the sharpest-yet view of the ice cap at Mars's south pole after it made its close approach on May 15, 2026. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU

The polar caps are scientifically important because they record Mars' climate history. The caps consist of stacked layers of water ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and dust deposited over vast spans of time. Scientists compare them to pages in a history book because the layers may preserve evidence of how Mars' conditions changed over billions of years.

Though Psyche's flyby captured thousands of images of Mars and its atmosphere, scientists used the encounter primarily as a rehearsal for the mission's future arrival at asteroid Psyche. During the close approach, engineers calibrated cameras and other instruments.

Scientists suspect asteroid Psyche could be the exposed metallic core of an early failed planet, offering a rare glimpse into the deep interior of worlds like Earth. But given that the robotic spacecraft won't arrive for another three years, the team has plenty of time to keep an eye on the planet in its rear view, said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. 

"As the spacecraft continues its journey after the flyby," Bell said in a statement, "we'll continue calibration imaging of Mars for the rest of the month as it recedes into the distance."

The Moon is still in its Crescent phase, but it's getting more and more illuminated each night as we work through the lunar cycle, the roughly month-long journey of the Moon’s changing phases as it orbits Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 21, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 27% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. Binoculars or a telescope will also bring the Endymion Crater into view.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

SpaceX plans to launch the next test of Starship on Thursday evening after a seven-month break spent rebuilding major parts of the rocket and its launch site.

The company last flew Starship in October 2025. Since then, engineers have redesigned the engines, reworked the spacecraft's heat shield, and built a new launchpad at Starbase, SpaceX's private launch complex in South Texas.

The upcoming mission, known as Flight 12, will debut what SpaceX calls the next generation of Starship and its Super Heavy booster. Together, the two stages stand about 400 feet tall and form the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built.

The test carries high stakes for both SpaceX and NASA. The U.S. space agency plans to use Starship to land astronauts on the moon as part of its Artemis program later this decade. At the same time, SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants the vehicle to eventually carry people and cargo to Mars. But before that can happen, the company must prove the rocket can launch reliably, survive the fiery plunge back through Earth's atmosphere, and eventually fly again without months of repairs between missions.

"The Starship production pipeline is full and will complete roughly 10 more ships and about half that number of boosters this year," Musk said in an X post on Monday. "If something goes wrong, it will not be a major setback, unless the launch stand is destroyed."

How to watch SpaceX's Starship launch

People can watch the launch live on SpaceX's website or on the company's X account. The webcast is expected to begin as early as 4:45 p.m. CT on Thursday, May 21, or about 45 minutes before liftoff. SpaceX says the launch window opens at 5:30 p.m. CT, though weather or technical issues could still delay the attempt. The date has already been pushed back a couple of times, and the company has created a social media thread to track the postponements. 

The long gap since the last flight reflects how much SpaceX has changed after earlier tests exposed weaknesses in the hardware. But the overhaul extended beyond the rocket itself. The launch site now includes a new launch mount, upgraded fuel systems, and redesigned "chopsticks," the mechanical arms meant to catch returning boosters.

A revamped Starship rocket and spacecraft sit fully stacked at the private SpaceX launchpad in South Texas ahead of Flight Test 12. Credit: SpaceX

One of Starship's biggest trouble spots is its heat shield, which uses thousands of protective tiles to protect the spacecraft during reentry from space. As Starship falls back through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, friction superheats the air around it. Earlier flights lost tiles or suffered damage underneath them.

This time, SpaceX plans to intentionally remove one tile so engineers can study how the surrounding tiles handle the stress. The company also painted some tiles white to help onboard cameras track changes during flight.

Flight 12 will also test upgrades to the rocket's Raptor engines. The newer versions generate more power while using fewer exposed parts — changes SpaceX hopes will improve reliability and reduce maintenance.

The mission includes several other experiments aimed at future deep-space flights. Starship will deploy 20 mock Starlink satellites during the more than one-hour test and attempt to restart one of its engines while in space, a maneuver future moon and Mars missions will likely require. If the ship completes the flight, it is expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, the Super Heavy rocket booster will attempt a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico rather than returning to the launch tower for a midair catch. SpaceX says it chose the more cautious approach this time because the booster design changed significantly since earlier flights.

Even after nearly a dozen test missions, Starship remains very much a work in progress. SpaceX follows a development strategy that relies on frequent testing, accepting failures, and quickly redesigning hardware between flights.

Meanwhile, NASA is rewriting its moon plans around SpaceX and competitor Blue Origin's commercial hardware, bending the missions around their contractors' needs to get astronauts onto the surface faster. In public, they talk about cadence and "muscle memory." Behind the scenes, they're watching one thing above all: how quickly SpaceX can reshape its lunar lander to match the new schedule. 

"SpaceX has been considering alternatives of their current Starship design," said Lori Glaze, NASA's acting exploration chief, "while implementing a more streamlined approach to try and speed things up and pull things forward."

The Moon is beginning to brighten again on its right-hand side, although only a thin crescent will be visible tonight, but it's enough to give keen skywatchers a glimpse of some Moon features.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, May 20, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 17% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

After nights of darkness, there's finally enough of the Moon illuminated to begin making out some of its surface features again. For example, without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. Binoculars or a telescope will also bring the Endymion Crater into view.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is starting to reappear on the right side, but there's still just a small sliver tonight. Can you see anything on its surface?

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, May 19, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 9% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Unfortunately, too little of the Moon is illuminated at the moment to make out any noticeable surface features.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Scientists detected a mysterious radio signal that lasted nearly three weeks, shattering previous records and pointing to an enormous magnetic structure that trapped energetic particles in space high above the sun.

The signal came from a so-called "type IV radio burst," a kind of radio noise associated with solar eruptions. Scientists usually watch these bursts flare up and disappear within mere hours. But this one persisted for about 19 days — almost four times longer than the previous record-holding event.

Several NASA and European Space Agency spacecraft observed the phenomenon, which happened last August, as the sun rotated. The Solar Orbiter saw it first. Nearly two weeks later, the Parker Solar Probe and Wind spacecraft near Earth detected the same signal. STEREO-A, short for the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory,  picked it up a day after that. This pattern hinted it was one long-lived source rotating with the sun rather than a succession of unrelated eruptions.

The signal also pulsed in a surprisingly regular rhythm. Roughly every 45 minutes to an hour, the radio emission brightened and dimmed. Researchers think enormous magnetic structures above the sun may have vibrated, almost like a ringing bell, periodically affecting the trapped electrons.

"Those vibrations probably squeezed and stretched the trapped electrons in a repeating cycle, which changes the brightness of the radio signal," according to NASA. 

The observations suggest the sun can maintain huge, organized reservoirs of energetic particles for weeks at a time. By studying this extraordinary event, scientists think they have gained a way to estimate the location of solar radio sources using only one spacecraft, a technique that could eventually improve space-weather forecasts. That's valuable because, while solar storms aren't harmful to human health on Earth, they can wreak havoc on satellites, GPS systems, radio communication, and power grids.

The researchers, who published their findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, believe the source sat near a "helmet streamer," a giant arching magnetic structure that rises from the sun's atmosphere and stretches far into space. They estimate that the structure measured more than 1.2 million miles wide — enormous even by solar standards.

The event coincided with three fast coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, massive eruptions that blast plasma and magnetic fields into space. The scientists suspect those eruptions repeatedly supplied fresh electrons or reshaped the magnetic environment in ways that kept the signal alive.

NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft tracked the radio burst between Sept. 6 to 9, 2025, mapping the emissions as they rotated across the sun. Credit: Vratislav Krupar et al 2026 ApJL 1003 L5 / https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae5537

The radio waves themselves showed an unusually strong polarization, meaning the waves oscillated in an ordered way rather than a chaotic one. That clue suggested the electrons moved through a surprisingly organized magnetic environment.

Scientists still don't know exactly how the sun made the radio waves, but they have two ideas. One explanation involves plasma emission, a common process in which energetic electrons moving through thin gas naturally create radio signals. Another possibility involves a rarer mechanism that behaves somewhat like a natural microwave laser in space and may operate inside unusually low-density magnetic cavities.

While the researchers don't have a clear understanding of the phenomenon, their evidence points toward a giant, rotating magnetic trap that survived for weeks while solar eruptions continued feeding it energetic particles.

The study also tackles a longstanding technical problem. Low-frequency solar radio waves bend and scatter as they travel through space, making their true source elusive. The researchers developed a correction method to account for some of that distortion. Using the new technique, they traced the source to heights between 2.5 to 4.3 million miles above the sun. 

The scientists say future missions could combine the technique with improved radio imaging and particle measurements to track solar eruptions more accurately.

There's a small sliver of the Moon in the sky tonight, but is it enough to spot any surface features?

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 18, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 3% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Unfortunately, there is still too little of the Moon's surface lit up to be able to see anything on its surface.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

There is still very little visibility of the Moon tonight, but we are now in a new lunar phase and it will slowly begin to reappear.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 17, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 1% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

The Moon is too dimly lit tonight to be able to spot any surface details.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

On the moon, not much can survive the arctic plunge of nightfall, where temperatures can dip to -330 degrees Fahrenheit for the two-week stretch of darkness each month. 

As more nations and private space companies attempt uncrewed moon landings, the dangers of lunar exploration have come into sharp focus. Even robotic missions that survive touchdown face another major threat: the brutal cold of the lunar night. Few landers and rovers ever wake after enduring the deep freeze. At cryogenic temperatures, soldered metal joints begin to fail and batteries die. 

That harsh environment presents a real challenge for NASA as it pursues a return of astronauts to the moon — especially to the south pole, which has some of the coldest temperatures in the solar system — but not an insurmountable one. 

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At Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, a team of engineers is testing a piece of equipment in a thermal vacuum chamber, putting the hardware through its paces. The chamber shifts from the extremes of 300 degrees Fahrenheit to -330 degrees Fahrenheit. Through repeated hot and cold cycles, the testing mimics real temperature swings that could happen between deep shadow and full sun at the lunar south pole, where Artemis IV may land with a crew as early as 2028. 

Based on test results, the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, is expected to become the first U.S. instrument to survive a full polar night, a milestone for NASA's plan to build a long-term moon base in the treacherous region. 

"No one, no American payload, as far as we know, has ever been able to say that they have survived the lunar south pole during its lunar night and been functional," said Samantha Hicks, the lead systems engineer for LEMS. "We are on track to become the first U.S. payload to do that."

The LEMS device is a key piece of hardware for NASA's lunar ambitions, tracking how the ground shakes on the moon for up to two years. The suitcase-size box will keep a constant ear to the ground for moonquakes and asteroid strikes — not just at the lunar south pole, but around the entire moon. 

Perhaps surprisingly, the moon remains seismically active, despite its lack of plate tectonics like we have on Earth, said Naoma McCall, LEMS co-investigator and deployment lead. The Apollo missions more than 50 years ago placed similar seismometers on the moon and recorded deep and shallow tremors, thermal events, and meteoroid impacts. But those midcentury instruments shut down in 1977 and provided an incomplete picture of what's going on in the moon's crust and mantle, she said. 

Samantha Hicks, left, and Naoma McCall, representatives from the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station team, flank a model of the future Artemis instrument at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on April 21, 2026. Credit: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

More data is crucial for NASA to safely establish a lunar outpost for humans to live and work, especially if the polar region turns out to shake more often — or more strongly — than predicted.

"There's a lot we don't know about the lunar interior because we only had the observations from the near side," McCall said, referring to the lunar hemisphere facing Earth, where all Apollo missions landed.

For decades, many far‑flung space missions have stayed warm with small nuclear heat sources that slowly release energy as they decay. Those systems are powerful but rely on scarce fuel. Furthermore, they add cost, complexity, and safety reviews. If this small piece of equipment can ride out the lunar night using only sunlight, batteries, and insulation, NASA could replicate the model for faster and simpler surface gear in the future. 

To install LEMS, an astronaut will nestle the box in a trench and drill cylindrical holes nearby to bury two sensors under ground. Engineers designed the 66-pound box so one person could carry it. If that load still sounds too heavy, remember that everything on the moon feels about one-sixth lighter than it does on Earth. 

After making sure the system is pointed in the right direction, the astronauts can set it and forget it, McCall said. A team practiced deploying the equipment at the University of Central Florida, in a room full of artificial moon soil, to ensure it could be executed in simple steps. 

A team integrates the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, instrument, which will track moonquakes and shakes, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

"We'll flip three switches and then walk away," McCall said.

While the outside of the box bakes and freezes, the most important internal components — the battery, autonomous computer, and other electronics — stay between about -22 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Engineers say that tighter internal range is what allows the equipment to continually operate, even as its shell faces the brunt of the lunar conditions.

The key to maintaining that consistent internal temperature is an advanced thermal blanket. The proprietary material, developed by Colorado-based Quest Thermal Group for NASA, is called Integrated MultiLayer Insulation, or IMLI. NASA also worked with partners to adjust how it will charge the lithium-ion battery to survive the extreme cold.

"Lithium ion absolutely hates going below -30 degrees [Celsius]. That's when you start getting lithium ion plating," said Hicks, referring to a problem that happens when the batteries can no longer absorb the chemical that carries the energy. "It's all about surviving that lunar night and worst-case scenario." 

After recent changes to the Artemis launch campaign, NASA has begun reworking the high-level plan for the upcoming moon-landing mission. The agency will decide whether the LEMS cargo will fly on Artemis IV after it has finalized the official list of everything onboard. In the meantime, the team will complete the rest of the testing schedule over the next few months.  

It's a new lunar phase tonight, and the end of the current lunar cycle. Keep reading to find out what this means.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 16, the Moon phase is New Moon. Tonight, 1% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There isn’t enough light or visibility tonight to make out any features on the Moon’s surface.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is now almost entirely out of view as we approach the New Moon, can you see anything tonight?

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 15, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 4% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There isn't enough visibility tonight to see anything on the Moon's surface. After the New Moon, visibility will start to return.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is now almost completely out of sight, with just a few days left until the New Moon. Keep reading to see what, if anything, you might be able to spot in the night sky tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 14, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 9% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

To spot anything in the sky tonight, you’ll need either binoculars or a telescope. With the help of one, you should be able to make out the Grimaldi Basin.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Two rovers have had big breaks over the past few years in the case of whether Mars ever hosted life. 

Curiosity, which is exploring Gale Crater, conducted a chemistry experiment on a rock sample that revealed complex carbon compounds. Perseverance, about 2,300 miles away at Jezero Crater, found fossilized material that an ancient alien microorganism could have excreted. 

Despite the compelling leads, NASA doesn't know whether ancient living things produced these organic molecules or if some other process, such as chemical reactions between rock and water, did. Because of instrument limitations, it's doubtful the U.S. space agency will ever be able to rule that possibility out, unless the samples come back to Earth.

"This finding by our incredible Perseverance rover is the closest we've actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars," said Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator for science, last year.

But a team of scientists has suggested a new way to look at samples that could help close the gap of ambiguity. The idea is surprisingly simple: Rather than try to look for specific molecules in a sample, study the overall pattern of chemicals within it. 

The researchers compared samples from living organisms, fossils, ocean sediments, meteorites, asteroid material, and lab experiments that simulated early-Earth or space chemistry. They specifically homed in on amino acids, which build proteins, and fatty acids, which contribute to cell membranes. They found that life organizes chemicals differently.

It turns out a strong statistical divide exists between biological and nonbiological samples, according to a new study. The results are published in Nature Astronomy. Though looking for molecular diversity in a sample is not a silver bullet for detecting aliens, it could offer one more strong piece of evidence to weigh in the balance. 

"Astrobiology is fundamentally a forensic science," said Gideon Yoffe, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, in a statement. "We’re trying to infer processes from incomplete clues, often with very limited data collected by missions that are extraordinarily expensive and infrequent."

In the study, amino acids from biological samples usually contained a wider and more balanced and organized mix of compounds because cells actively make many compounds for specific jobs. Abiotic samples — specimens formed without life — tended to look sparse, with a few simple amino acids dominating the mixture. Some contaminated meteorites shifted closer to the biological group, indicating that biology changes chemical patterns in recognizable ways.

The researchers also found samples that leaned in the other direction. Biological samples that had suffered heavy damage from heat, radiation, or age started to resemble nonliving chemistry because they lost molecular diversity over time. Ancient rocks, fluids from hydrothermal vents, and some fossils all showed signs of this deterioration.

Scientists wondered whether radiation could erase the biological signal. They simulated conditions in the icy surface layers of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and found that the diversity pattern often survived, even after substantial chemical damage.

Fatty acids, on the other hand, showed the opposite trend but still clearly distinguished life from non-life. Because living cells rely on a narrower set of fatty acids for membranes, the biological samples appeared less evenly distributed. Nonliving chemistry produced broader, more uniform mixtures, according to the study.

Hannah McLain works at Goddard Space Flight Center's Astrobiology Lab, where samples of asteroid Bennu are studied. Credit: NASA / Vivian Renkey

The statistical strategy could improve current space missions designed to perform chemical analyses and some life-detection tests. Scientists often search for unusual isotope ratios or molecular "handedness," but those signals can fade over time and require sensitive instruments. 

Curiosity or Perseverance could potentially do this kind of statistical test if ever the rovers were to detect a broad suite of related organic compounds and measure the reliable relative amounts of those different molecules, said Fabian Klenner, a UC Riverside assistant professor of planetary sciences and coauthor on the paper. The current limitation isn't that the rovers are incapable of analyzing molecular diversity, but that they need a sample rich and varied enough in organic data. 

The technique might be especially useful for NASA's eight-rotor Dragonfly aircraft, which is expected to explore Titan, an icy moon of Saturn, in the mid-2030s. The aircraft will have a mass spectrometer device designed to analyze and characterize organic molecules. 

"Dragonfly is another interesting case," Klenner told Mashable. "If it can resolve organic molecules and their relative abundances, then I would love to see our diversity approach applied to the data." 

The Department of War (DOW) and the ODNI have begun a historic effort to review and release tens of millions of records regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). Watch the newly released videos of unidentified flying objects.

The Milky Way's core doesn't look like the ancient stellar graveyard many astronomers once thought it was.

At the heart of a massive new survey from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are mapping one of the most crowded regions in our galaxy. Early results from the project may help address a long-running debate about the age of the Milky Way's central bulge — the tightly packed region of space surrounding the galaxy's core.

For decades, many astronomers treated the bulge as a relic from the Milky Way's earliest years. Previous studies of star brightness and color placed most of its formation around 10 billion years ago. By comparison, our solar system formed just 4.6 billion years ago.

But newer research has complicated that picture. Some studies suggest a noticeable share of stars near the galactic center may be much younger — perhaps only 5 billion to 8 billion years old. If true, that would mean the Milky Way kept developing its central region far later than some scientists had ever imagined. If astronomers can determine when the bulge's stars formed, they can reconstruct how the galaxy itself grew and changed over time.

The Hubble survey will build a catalog of 20 to 30 million objects in this dense region, said Sean Terry, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The team has published a paper on the Hubble survey in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Researchers designed the Hubble program to support the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will search the same region for planets using gravitational microlensing, a technique that detects distant objects by measuring how their gravity bends and brightens starlight. The Roman mission could launch as early as this fall. 

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"The main goal of these observations is to be able to identify objects that participate in lensing events during the Roman survey, catching them before they undergo the lensing event," said Jay Anderson, a co-author based at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, in a statement. "When, in a couple of years, an event happens during Roman's long stare at the field, we can go back and say, 'This was a red star, this was a blue star, and the event happened when the red star went in front of the blue star.'"

But the Hubble survey also stands on its own. It delivers one of the sharpest wide-area views ever captured of the Milky Way's crowded core, where dust clouds block much of the light and stars are so tightly packed that their images often overlap. By distinguishing those stars more cleanly, the survey allows astronomers to assemble a consistent catalog across 354 fields near the galactic center. 

Even so, conditions vary sharply throughout the region. In some fields, astronomers match thousands of stars to measurements from the Gaia spacecraft, a mission that tracked star positions and their motion across the sky. In others, dense dust blots out so much light that only a few hundred stars appear clearly enough for comparison.

The variation itself helps map the inner galaxy. It shows where dust obscures the view and where starlight passes through more easily. While Hubble sharpens the view of crowded stars, it cannot remove the effects of dust. That means there are still some patchy areas of the Milky Way's interior.

The Hubble Space Telescope reveals the Milky Way's crowded core in this 2018 image of the galactic bulge. Credit: NASA / ESA / Thomas Brown

Researchers expect future work from the survey to produce detailed maps of the interstellar dust in the galactic center, showing where starlight is blocked and where it shines. That will help astronomers trace how stars are distributed.

The Roman telescope will repeatedly monitor the same region and track changes in how stars move and brighten over time across millions of objects. By collecting Hubble images years earlier, astronomers effectively created a "before" snapshot of the galactic bulge.

That long time gap could help scientists measure how fast stars drift across the sky with unusual precision. It may also help them identify faint or otherwise hidden objects through their gravitational effects.

The Moon is losing visibility each night as we approach the New Moon. With just a few nights left before it's total darkness, keep reading to find out what you might be able to see tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 11, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 36% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you can see the Kepler Crater and the Aristarchus Plateau. If you have binoculars or a telescope, these should help you see the Gassendi Crater, Clavius Crater, and Mare Humorum.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is now in its Waning Crescent phase, which means we're getting closer to the New Moon and a start of a new lunar cycle. Over the coming nights, visibility will reduce significantly. But for now, there's still some features to be seen, so keep reading to find out what you can see on the Moon tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 10, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 46% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you can see the Kepler Crater and the Aristarchus Plateau. If you have binoculars, pull them out to catch a glimpse of the Gassendi Crater, Clavius Crater, and Mare Humorum. Finally, if you have access to a telescope, enjoy gazing at the Apollo 14 landing spot and the Schiller Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

On Gemini 7's second lap around Earth, as the spacecraft glided over the Caribbean Sea, astronaut Frank Borman glanced outside and radioed a deadpan report: "We have a bogey at 10 o'clock high."

That moment in 1965 passed, folded into NASA's growing pile of strange-yet-seemingly-innocuous space oddities. But President Donald Trump's new UFO files suggest it never really left the government's imagination.

The release, published May 8 through a new government archive for unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, pulls together records from NASA, the FBI, and several intelligence agencies. UAP is Washington's new catch-all for UFOs and other odd events that officials can't immediately explain. The administration says more files will arrive in rolling batches on a new website over the coming weeks. Its white-on-black typeset and grainy military photos add a nostalgic X-Files flair.

Astronauts have always carried unusual weight in UFO lore. They are trained observers, steeped in checklists and telemetry, but also symbols of humanity's push into the unknown. So when astronauts reported strange lights, drifting objects, or puzzling events in orbit, those accounts tended to stick — even when later investigations pointed to equipment glitches, space junk, or natural occurrences.

The newly released records don't prove extraterrestrial life exists, and officials repeatedly caution that many cases remain unresolved simply because investigators never collected enough data to reach a firm conclusion. 

"I applaud President Trump's whole-of-government effort to bring greater transparency to the American people on unidentified anomalous phenomena," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. "We will remain candid about what we know to be true, what we have yet to understand, and all that remains to be discovered. Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge are core to NASA's mission as we endeavor to unlock the secrets of the universe." 

NASA astronauts repeatedly reported strange sights during missions to the moon and aboard the United States' first space station, according to newly highlighted material in the files. The records include astronaut transcripts, crew debriefings, an audio recording, and annotated photographs, spanning missions from Gemini 7 in 1965 through Skylab in the 1970s.  

Gemini 7 astronauts reported a 'bogey' in orbit

During the Gemini 7 mission in 1965, astronaut Frank Borman radioed mission control to report what he called a "bogey," a military term for an unidentified aircraft. Borman and astronaut Jim Lovell also described a cloud of particles drifting near their spacecraft. Lovell later described a bright object that he saw against the darkness of space. Handwritten notes attached to the transcript labeled the event a "UFO sighting by Borman."  

Apollo 11 crew spotted lights on the way to the moon

Apollo 11 astronauts described several unusual observations during the first human moon landing mission in 1969. 

Buzz Aldrin told debriefers the crew saw a large object while en route to the moon and examined it with a monocular. The astronauts speculated it may have been part of the Saturn V rocket. Aldrin also described repeated flashes of light inside the spacecraft cabin. He later reported seeing a bright light the crew tentatively identified as a laser during their return to Earth.  

An area of interest above the lunar horizon is highlighted in this view from the 1969 landing site of the Apollo 12 mission. Credit: NASA / Department of Defense

Apollo 12 astronauts watched drifting glowing particles

Apollo 12 astronauts reported multiple unexplained sightings during their 1969 mission. 

Alan Bean described seeing particles and flashes of light "sailing off in space" while using the spacecraft's optical telescope. Commander Pete Conrad later described illuminated debris floating outside the lunar module before the light source suddenly disappeared. 

The archive also includes several Apollo 12 photographs marked with highlighted "areas of interest" above the lunar horizon.  

A smattering of five areas of interest are highlighted in this image taken from the Apollo 12 landing site on the moon. Credit: NASA / Department of Defense

Apollo 17 crew described mysterious objects

Back in 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts reported some of the most detailed observations in the archive. 

Ronald Evans described bright particles tumbling near the spacecraft, while Harrison Schmitt compared the scene to "the Fourth of July." Commander Eugene Cernan later reported intense flashing lights that appeared bright enough to resemble a train headlight. Schmitt also reported seeing a flash on the lunar surface near Grimaldi crater. 

Another Apollo 17 image in the archive shows three unexplained dots in a triangular formation. Government analysts have reopened the case and obtained the original film for further study, according to the file.  

Skylab crews repeatedly saw flashes

Astronauts aboard Skylab, America's first space station, documented unexplained sightings in 1973 and 1974.

One crew saw frequent light flashes while trying to sleep. Another tracked a bright reddish object for several minutes, eventually concluding it moved in an orbit similar to Skylab's. A later crew reported flashing lights outside the station moving independently of the spacecraft, though astronauts suspected the objects may have been debris or satellites. 

It's a new lunar phase tonight, the Third Quarter. This means around 50% of the Moon is illuminated and we're even closer to the New Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 9, the Moon phase is Third Quarter. Tonight, 56% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you look up with you no visual aids tonight you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Tycho Crater and the Oceanus Procellarum.

If you have binoculars, you'll be able to see the Mare Humorum, Alphonsus Crater, and Alps Mountains are just a few. And that's not all, if you have a telescope you'll see all this and the Fra Mauro Highlands and Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

As NASA's Juno flew around Jupiter last week, the spacecraft snapped a photo of an object before it could make a clean getaway. 

That clunky, bumpy thing at the far right edge of the frame is Thebe, the second largest of the gas giant planet's inner moons. The rarely photographed Jovian world was caught on camera May 1, during a close pass. (It's actually not quite clear whether Juno saw it coming or going.)

Though the mission's JunoCam takes most of the stunning imagery from Jupiter's system, this picture came from the little-known Stellar Reference Unit instrument. The spacecraft was just 3,100 miles away from Thebe in space when it took the portrait. Each pixel represents just under 2 square miles. 

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"While the SRU's primary function is to image star fields for navigation, its high sensitivity in low-light conditions makes it a powerful secondary science instrument," according to NASA. 

As of the latest count, Jupiter has a bevy of 115 moons. But unlike the large Galilean moons that astronomers have known since the 17th century, Thebe is a modern-day discovery. Scientists first learned of its existence during the Voyager 1 mission in 1980. The moon is one of four small natural satellites that circle Jupiter inside the orbit of Io, a larger tortured world with active volcanoes. 

Thebe sits at the outer edge of Jupiter's so-called "gossamer" rings and is believed to play a crucial role in their formation. Scientists think these fainter rings are the product of meteors slamming into Thebe and neighboring moon Amalthea. The impacts are thought to then cause rocks and dust to spray into space around the planet.

The little-known Stellar Reference Unit, an instrument that helps NASA navigate Juno, took the image of Thebe. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech infographic

Thebe, named after one of Zeus' nymph lovers in Greek mythology, is predominantly red and only about 60 miles wide. Its most distinctive feature is a huge central depression, known as Zethus crater, on the far side of the moon. It spans almost half the width of the moon itself. 

Despite its diminutive size, Thebe is built for speed. At a distance of 138,000 miles from Jupiter, it zooms around the planet every 16 hours. That's fitting for an image whose target looks like it's sprinting away. 

As of 2026, the spacecraft has orbited Jupiter for nearly a decade. It's studying the origin and evolution of the gas giant planet and its network of moons and dust rings. 

During Juno's primary mission, the spacecraft collected data on Jupiter's atmosphere and interior. Among its discoveries was finding that the planet's atmospheric weather layer extends way beyond its water clouds. 

After completing 35 orbits, the spacecraft transitioned to looking at the entire system around Jupiter. While the JunoCam has been responsible for many key observations, the SRU instrument has made its own discoveries, such as the "shallow lightning" in Jupiter's atmosphere.

The extended mission will continue until the spacecraft dies. Though Juno will eventually fall toward Jupiter as its trajectory degrades, NASA says it poses no risk of crashing into or contaminating any of the moons, some of which could be habitable worlds.

It's the day before the Third Quarter, so the Moon is closer to 50% illuminated. During this phase of the lunar cycle, the Moon is only half lit again, but this time it’s the opposite side compared to First Quarter, as the Moon moves toward the new moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 8, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 66% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you look up with you no visual aids tonight you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Tycho Crater and the Kelper Crater.

If you have binoculars, you'll be able to see even more, including the Clavius Crater, Gassendi Crater, and Apennine Mountains are just a few. And that's not all, if you have a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 15 landing spot, the Schiller Crater, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We're just a couple of days away from the next phase of the lunar cycle, the Third Quarter. This is when the Moon appears to be around half full, lit only on the left side (right side if you're in the Southern Hemisphere).

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 7, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 74% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There is still enough of the Moon's surface illuminated to see features on it tonight. For example, if you look up with your naked eye you'll be able to spot the Mares Serenitatus, Vaporum and the Oceanus Procellarum.

If you have binoculars, you'll be able to see even more, including the Clavius Crater, Mare Humorum, and Alps Mountains are just a few. And that's not all, if you have a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 and 15 landing spots as well as the Rima Hyginus.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Newborn stars born in the biggest stellar clusters tear themselves out of their birth clouds much faster than those that grow up in small clusters, according to a new study. 

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope, researchers studied nearly 9,000 examples from four different galaxies: Messier 51, Messier 83, NGC 4449, and NGC 628.

Because no one can watch a single cluster evolve over millions of years in space, scientists instead observed many clusters at different intervals and treated them like snapshots in a sequence. Some stars were still completely buried in dust. Some had partly emerged. Others were fully exposed.

What researchers found was a consistent pattern: The star clusters moved through the same sequence but how quickly depended on their mass. For the largest clusters, clearing the cloud of gas and dust may only take about 5 million years. The smaller ones may not break free for 7 to 8 million years.

The research puts real numbers on something that has remained ambiguous up until now. Simulations of star formation already factor in so-called "stellar feedback" — the radiation, stellar winds, and supernovas that young stars produce — but the models disagree on how fast those events and processes blow away gas. These new measurements, published in Nature Astronomy, give scientists a concrete timeline based on a large sample, said Angela Adamo, a lead author on the study from Stockholm University and the Oskar Klein Centre in Sweden.

The patterns showed up everywhere the team looked, even though each galaxy doesn't look or behave the same way. That consistency suggests the timing isn't just a product of a local quirk in one environment, but a basic feature of how star clusters evolve.

The clusters all started off similarly: with baby stars releasing their energy in secret. At the earliest stage, they're hidden deep within a thick cloud of gas and dust that blocks their visible light. Only infrared light can pass through that haze.

Inset images zoom in on newborn star clusters in Messier 51, one of the four galaxies included in the new James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble study. Credit: ESA / NASA / CSA / A. Pedrini / A. Adamo

As the concealed stars grow, they change their environment, heating the surrounding gas and blasting out radiation and fast stellar winds. Over time, that energy pushes the gas and dust away, revealing what's inside.

By counting how many clusters appear in each stage, the researchers estimated how long each phase lasts. The idea is simple: If lots of clusters show up in a stage, it tends to last longer; if only a few do, it's over more quickly.

Once the cloud is gone, there's nothing holding the stars back. Their ultraviolet radiation can travel farther through their home galaxy, colliding with nearby gas and influencing where new stars can or cannot form next.

When that stellar feedback is unleashed, it creates a lot of waste, sterilizing regions of galaxies. Most of the gas never gets used for star formation. 

That extends to planets, too. Young stars form with disks of gas and dust around them, and those disks birth planets. If a cluster blows away its surrounding material quickly, those disks get exposed earlier, vulnerable to harsh radiation that can interrupt the process of world building. 

The research has implications for scientists working on a variety of cosmic mysteries, said Alex Pedrini, lead author of the study, who is also based at Stockholm University and the Oskar Klein Centre in Sweden.

"We can look into the cradles of star clusters and connect planet formation to the cycle of star formation and stellar feedback," he said in a statement.

An icy world, perhaps just 300 miles wide and far beyond Pluto, may have air, challenging the assumption that small space objects can't hold onto an atmosphere.

This world, known as 2002 XV93, orbits in a distant region sprinkled with leftover rubble from our solar system's early planet-building days. Astronomers often study this ancient detritus, referred to as Trans-Neptunian Objects, by waiting for remnants to pass in front of stars. During rare alignments, researchers can measure how the starlight changes to learn about an object's size and features, such as rings or debris.

What scientists saw instead for this object was startling. On Jan. 10, 2024, the little object eclipsed a faint star — a star so anonymous it doesn't even have a common name. But that event, seen from East Asia, revealed thin air on 2002 XV93.

Typically, if an object has no atmosphere, the background starlight disappears abruptly as the object blocks it. Instead, telescopes recorded a gradual fading out and in of the light at the beginning and end of the event — a sign that an atmosphere had bent or scattered it.

"Our findings suggest that a fraction of distant icy minor planets can exhibit atmospheres," the researchers wrote in a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. 

The researchers estimated that an extremely thin atmosphere, with a surface pressure between about 100 and 200 nanobars, surrounds the object. That level is far thinner than Pluto's atmosphere but stronger than anything previously measured around similar small bodies in the outer solar system.

In a post on X, lead author Ko Arimatsu said this is the first detection of an atmosphere for a Trans-Neptunian Object beyond Pluto. It's not known yet what gases are in the world's air, but methane, nitrogen, or carbon monoxide are the team's best guesses, based on their observations.

The discovery shocked scientists because astronomical models indicate small, distant objects should not be able to maintain an atmosphere — at least not for very long. Under weak gravity, gases tend to escape into space, meaning any atmosphere would likely dissipate within a few hundred to a few thousand years.

That may suggest the researchers caught a temporary atmosphere for the object at just the right time. 

The authors proffer a few scenarios for how 2002 XV93's atmosphere could have formed. One possibility is that a comet or asteroid could have crashed into the world recently, releasing trapped gases. Another possibility is that cold volcanoes could have vented gases instead of lava, or internal heat or chemistry could have pushed gases to the surface. 

If the air fades over time, it likely came from a collision. If it continues or changes in cycles, that may mean internal mechanisms are responsible. The team favors the former explanation over the latter.

Scientists say they'll need to study the object more to solve the mystery. They already have James Webb Space Telescope observations of the target that show no indication of frozen material that could have turned into gas.

As we move through the lunar cycle, you'll notice small changes in the Moon's shape each night. Right now, we're in the waning phase. This means it will be losing light on the right side until we reach the New Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 4, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Serenitatus, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrim. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Endymion Crater, and the Mare Humorum. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 landing spot, the Rima Hyginus, and the Descartes Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

When NASA makes a new timelapse video, it's not for reminiscence or clout chasing on the Internet.

The U.S. space agency recently pulled together images from Curiosity, one of its two robotic rovers on Mars, for a scientific purpose. The two-minute video provides a quick succession of clips spanning six years of exploration at Gale Crater. Each image shows the rover ambling over crumbling lithic landscapes as it slowly climbs Mount Sharp, which rises three miles above the basin floor. 

The montage isn't just an intriguing look back on the mission, but a tool for the rover's science team. Using views from Curiosity's right navigation camera, mounted on its head, the researchers analyze the sand grains shifting on the rover's deck. 

You can watch the Martian dust churn in the rover's treads in the Instagram post below. (The Lenny Kravitz soundtrack, though not for science, certainly adds to the appeal.) 

"Distinguishing between sand jostled by each drive and wind gusts can provide new information about seasonal changes in the atmosphere," the agency said. 

Curiosity took these images between Jan. 2, 2020, and March 8, but the rover's journey began long before that. After eight months and 352 million miles flying through space, the rover landed on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012. Its mission: Find out if this smaller neighboring world ever had conditions to support living creatures. 

NASA's question was answered rather quickly. Within a year, the rover had drilled a rock sample from a long-gone lakebed and confirmed the region had the right chemistry for habitation in its ancient past, as well as potential nutrients for microorganisms. 

Since then, the rover has continued to study the alien environment using its internal chemistry lab. A recently published study revealed the rover detected 21 different organic molecules in a small rock sample, the largest set found on the Red Planet so far. Among the findings, Curiosity discovered preserved complex carbon material. Life could have produced them, though NASA can't say for sure, as chemical reactions between water and rock could also create these molecules. 

As scientists monitor the shifting sand for clues about Mars' seasonal changes, engineers keep a close eye on how that dust and debris put wear and tear on the vehicle. Almost since the beginning of the journey, the team has noticed sharp rocks in the terrain ravaging Curiosity's wheels, even causing punctures. 

Before the rover's sibling launched, NASA went back to the drawing board. Engineers built Perseverance with hardier wheels made from thicker aluminum. Each wheel is powered by its own motor and can turn in a full circle, allowing it to dodge and swerve around hazards more easily. 

Engineers inspect damage to Curiosity's wheels on Mars on April 18, 2016. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

But to help the elder rover, NASA has problem-solved alternative techniques, such as driving in reverse. Software engineers also provided upgrades that gave Curiosity's team more control over individual wheel speeds to reduce the force of jagged rocky surfaces. Those efforts have kept the rover trucking, which has traveled 23 miles on Mars. 

Wheel damage isn't the only concern in the harsh conditions on Mars. Many a mission has succumbed to the effects of blustery Martian winds, which kick up dust that then settles on solar panels.

Such was the fate of Curiosity and Perseverance's predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, who died from dust choking their vital power sources.

The Moon is still pretty full in the sky, so there's lots of opportunity to catch a glimpse of some special features on its surface.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 3, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 98% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Serenitatus and Vaporum, and the Oceanus Procellarum. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Endymion Crater, and the Mare Humorum. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 and 17 landing spots, as well as the Descartes Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

By trading wheels for helicopter blades, NASA is upping its game for the Dragonfly mission, a flying machine intended to explore Titan, an icy moon of Saturn. 

The team has started assembling the honeycomb panels for the aircraft's main body, completed a series of drop tests on the parachute system, and demonstrated that its compact chemistry lab can pick out tiny amounts of target molecules in test samples.

This NASA robot, expected to launch as early as 2028, is no space orbiter. Dragonfly will be an SUV-size, eight-rotor aircraft, designed specifically to navigate the hazy orange skies of Titan, a world larger than the planet Mercury. It will explore the alien landscape much like NASA's fleet of rovers, except Dragonfly will have a much faster way of getting from Point A to B. In the words of Back to the Future's Doc Brown: "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." 

Titan, about 886 million miles from Earth, is the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. But Titan's air is thick — about 1.5 times the pressure at Earth's sea level and roughly three times as dense, said Charles Malespin, who leads the team that built the hardware for analyzing Titan's samples. Because it is so cold in this alien world, gases like methane become liquids, and the atmosphere turns into a heavy blanket. Meanwhile, the moon has just one-seventh Earth's gravity.  

"That's why an octocopter is primed for that, because you could fly very easily through it," Malespin said. "We could cover a huge amount of terrain and explore a much larger area."

Scientists see Titan as a kind of time machine for understanding how life begins. Its methane‑rich atmosphere constantly produces complex organic molecules that dust the icy surface, creating dunes and deposits of carbon‑based material. On early Earth, similar chemistry may have helped make the building blocks of life, but our planet's surface has since changed dramatically because of life and geology. 

Titan, by contrast, stays frozen and preserves that chemistry. By flying from dune fields to an ancient crater where water and organics could have mixed, researchers hope Dragonfly will allow them to study how simple ingredients evolve into more complex molecules. 

"There was a melt pool that may have lasted up to about 1,000 years. That is a lot of time for chemistry to happen between the organics that are depositing in it and the water," said Melissa Trainer, a planetary scientist and the lead for Dragonfly's DraMS instrument, a quasi-acronym for its mass spectrometer. "Who knows what we could make in a 1,000-year chemistry experiment?"

For a handful of reporters at Goddard Space Flight Center in April, NASA walked through how the $3.35 billion mission will drill into Titan's rock-hard ice, analyze samples with its built‑in chemistry lab, and then lift off again to explore a new spot. The device will use a carousel of 40 sample cups, tiny ovens, and a laser to study the Saturn moon's plentiful organic material.

It's the opposite of what the tiny drone Ingenuity, which went kaput two years ago, faced on Mars. There, the air is about 100 times thinner than Earth's. To lift itself, Ingenuity needed very long blades and a featherweight body, leaving hardly any wiggle room to carry instruments.

But for Dragonfly, engineers can exploit its larger body to stuff it full of tools. 

"If you had cardboard wings, you could fly just by pushing because the atmosphere is pretty much so thick there," Malespin said. 

NASA Dragonfly team members begin integrating the sample carousel into the DraMS mass spectrometer instrument. Credit: NASA / Mike Guinto

Mobility is the other key reason NASA built Dragonfly as an aircraft. Rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars move slowly, perhaps half a football field in a day. Dragonfly, on the other hand, could traverse miles.

Researchers will use the mission's measurements collected over three years to study prebiotic chemistry, the steps that occur on the way to making life. They are looking for familiar building blocks, such as amino acids, nucleobases, and fatty acids.

But one limitation for the mission is that Dragonfly can't explore Titan's lakes or seas of liquid methane and ethane at the north pole. Instead, the robot is built to explore an equatorial region of dunes. That's fine with the team, said deputy project scientist Shannon MacKenzie, because some of the materials scientists are looking for on Titan don't dissolve well in liquids anyway. 

"We want to go to the sand," MacKenzie said. "Those organic sand particles are probably the end result of a lot more of that chemistry than what we would be able to slurp up out of the lakes."

Awaiting those detections will take a great deal of patience for the team. The journey alone to get to Titan in the outer solar system will take nearly seven years. 

It's the day after the Full Moon, and it still looks almost 100% in the sky. With this in mind, be sure to look up and try and catch a glimpse of some features on the surface tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 2, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 100% of the moon will be still be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Crisium and Vaporum, and the Tycho Crater. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Archimedes Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 and 17 landing spots, as well as the Descartes Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

May is an extra special month for astronomy fans, because there isn't just one Full Moon, there's two. The first is the Flower Moon, named for the time of year when little signs of Spring start to appear. At the end of the month, we’ll see a Blue Moon. This doesn't have anything to do with its color, but simply the name given to a second Full Moon within the same calendar month.

Keep reading to find out more about this month’s Full Moon.

When is the May full moon?

The full moon will occur on Friday, May 1. Time and Date estimates it will peak at 1:23 p.m. ET.

What is the May full moon called?

One of the most beautiful parts of Spring is the return of flowers blooming. Daffodils are in full swing and wildflowers start to reappear, and summer starts to feel closer. This very experience is why the May full moon is called the Flower Moon, explains Royal Museums Greenwich.

When is the next full moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are the lunar phases?

The Full Moon is one of eight stages the Moon moves through during its roughly 29.5-day orbit around Earth. At each stage, a different portion of its surface is illuminated by the Sun from our viewpoint on Earth. Although we always face the same side of the Moon, the shifting position of sunlight across its orbit is what creates the changing appearance, from fully lit, to partially bright, to almost dark as the cycle progresses.

The phases are:

• New Moon — The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (so, we don't see anything).

• Waxing Crescent — A small sliver of light appears on the right side

• First Quarter — Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

• Waxing Gibbous — More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

• Full Moon — The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

• Waning Gibbous — The moon starts losing light on the right side

• Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) — Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

• Waning Crescent — A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

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It's the Full Moon, and the first of two in May. This one is known as the Flower Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 1, the Moon phase is Full Moon. Tonight, 100% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Serenitatis, Tycho Crater, and the Copernicus Crater. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Archimedes Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 16 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Space fans can now order Rise, the plushie that stole the world's hearts when it flew around the moon with the Artemis II astronauts. 

The soft, squishy toy is what's known as a zero-gravity indicator, a small object that floats to show the crew and mission control when the capsule has reached space. The tradition dates back to the early 1960s and has continued with Beanie Babies, Snoopy, Baby Yoda, and other stuffed animals that sometimes reach mascot status.

Dreamed up by second-grader Lucas Ye, Rise is a smiling moon wearing a cap that resembles Earth. The design represents the famous Earthrise image taken during Apollo 8, when humans first saw our home planet hovering just above the moon's horizon.

Lucas crafted his own prototype before winning a NASA contest last year out of more than 2,600 entries. The crew  — Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — had the final pick. During the mission, Rise had an SD card carrying over 5.6 million people's names, submitted from space fans around the world, tucked in a tiny pocket.

The character quickly became a breakout star of the mission, the first flight to deep space in a half-century. The public reaction appeared to catch the agency off-guard. NASA doesn't make its own merchandise, and it had not issued any licenses to manufacture the toys before the launch on April 1. That meant the Kennedy Space Center gift shop and others were inundated with requests for Rise over the course of the 10-day mission with not one plushie on the shelves to sell.

"We sincerely appreciate your excitement and support," the Kennedy shop had said in a notice on its website earlier this month, "and kindly ask for your patience as fulfillment times may be longer than usual."

Rise zero-gravity indicator designer Lucas Ye, a second-grader from California, attends the Artemis II launch at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1, 2026. Credit: NASA / Keegan Barber

Popularity skyrocketed as people saw the crew's affection for Rise, whom Koch called their "stowaway." During live broadcasts, Glover would position the plushie in front so it would look as though it were talking into the floating microphone. Wiseman was spotted leaving the bobbing Orion spacecraft with Rise hooked onto his pressure suit. 

"I was supposed to leave Rise in Integrity," he said on X, referring to the crew's nickname for their space capsule, "but that was not something I was going to do." 

One day later, Wiseman showed that Rise was still safe in his custody, tethered to his water bottle. 

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Where to buy NASA's official Artemis II plushie "Rise"

Now, three weeks after Artemis II's successful return to Earth, customers can purchase their own Rise plushies from NASA Exchange, the self‑funded network of gift shops that does not run on taxpayer dollars. Along with the plushies, which retail for $24.99 apiece, are other mementos featuring Rise, including a T-shirt that reads "Copy, Moon Joy," a slogan that had its own viral moment during the test flight.

There are sure to be some differences between the original and its mass-produced doppelgängers. The moonbound Rise was bespoke, made at NASA's Thermal Blanket Lab in Maryland out of strict, spaceflight-approved materials. It's unclear whether these plushies will also feature the tiny footprint on the back, representing Neil Armstrong's one small step. NASA officials didn't immediately respond to questions from Mashable.

The official Rise plushie can be purchased for $24.99 from NASA Exchange. Credit: NASA

Because the winning design from the contest had a late reveal — just five days before liftoff — commercial vendors didn't have time to prepare licensed versions of Rise, said David Rager, creative director at NASA.

Orders for Rise merchandise may take up to eight weeks to fulfill. All profits will go toward activities and facilities that serve NASA employees. 

"This little guy, Rise, really resonated with us," Koch said.

It's day 13 of the lunar cycle, and the day before the Full Moon. If it's a clear sky where you are tonight, chances are you'll spot lots of features on the Moon's surface.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, April 30, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 98% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Serenitatis, Tycho Crater, and the Copernicus Crater. With binoculars, you'll see the Alps Mountains, Archimedes Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 16 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

As a U.S. satellite monitored the sun for hazardous space weather this week, something unexpected slipped into view.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-19 orbits about 22,300 miles above Earth and carries instruments that can track solar activity. Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field shield people from the worst health effects of radiation during geomagnetic storms, but these events can still disrupt power grids and navigation systems.

“But sometimes, other activity comes into view that, while not space weather, is still fascinating!” the agency wrote Monday on X.

That activity was Comet C/2025 R3, which recently made its closest approach to both Earth and the sun. In footage posted by NOAA, the giant space snowball suddenly darts across the solar camera's field of view. You can watch it in the X post below.

The satellite's coronagraph was able to capture the images because of how the instrument works. It blocks the sun's blinding face to create an artificial eclipse — similar to using your hand to shield your eyes from a bright light. That lets forecasters watch solar storms erupt from the sun's outer atmosphere, events that would otherwise be lost in the glare.

Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, and solar flares are both enormous explosions on the sun and sometimes occur together. Through specialized telescopes, flares appear as flashes, while ejections look like fans of gas blasting into space, according to NASA. Plasma from a CME can travel more than 1 million mph and usually reaches Earth within about three days.

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Watch the video of Comet R3 from the above X post.

Astronomers discovered Comet R3 in September 2025. The first reports came from Pan-STARRS2, one of two 1.8-meter reflector telescopes at Haleakala on Maui in Hawaii. The observatory scans the sky for near-Earth objects and has been especially successful at finding new comets.

R3 quickly drew attention because many astronomers had predicted it could be the brightest comet to enter the inner solar system this year. Though it may not have been visible to the naked eye, some astronomers expected it to be bright enough for small binoculars.

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The comet made its closest pass by Earth on Sunday, April 26, coming within 45.5 million miles of the planet — roughly half the distance between Earth and the sun. As of Tuesday, it was flying through the constellation Cetus.

Comets formed in the outer solar system about 4.6 billion years ago, during the earliest days of planet formation. Made of ice, dust, and rock, they orbit the sun and may have delivered water and organic compounds — the chemical precursors of biology — to early Earth.

As a comet nears the sun, its ice changes directly from solid to gas, releasing material that forms its glowing tail. Unlike meteors, which streak briefly as shooting stars, comets can trail millions of miles of vaporized ice, dust, and carbon dioxide.

It may appear full, but the Moon isn't actually at 100% illumination yet. In fact, we're still a couple of days away. But it's still big and bright enough to do some moon gazing, so keep reading to find out what features you might be able to see tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, April 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrium. With binoculars, you'll see the Mare Frigoris, Clavius Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rima Ariadaeus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We're approaching the first of two Full Moons in May, so that means the Moon is looking particularly bright in the sky right now. For keen moon gazers, this means there is plenty of exciting features keep an eye out for. But what exactly can you see? Keep reading to find out.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, April 28, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 89% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. With binoculars, you'll see the Mares Frigoris and Nectaris, and Apennine Mountains should also come into view. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 15 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The famous Sombrero Galaxy now appears as more than a wide-brimmed hat floating in deep outer space. 

New images from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile reveal a gigantic halo surrounding the galaxy, stretching three times its width. Already considered one of the largest objects in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, the galaxy's expansive glow is roughly 150,000 light-years wide. 

The pictures come from the Dark Energy Camera, an instrument mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation's Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope. Though the camera was built for a study that ended in 2019, it continues to aid astronomers, providing new insights for even the most photographed cosmic targets. 

"This may be the first time the halo has been captured with this level of detail and at this large a scale," according to NOIRLab, a program of the National Science Foundation. 

Discovered in 1781 by the French comet hunter Pierre Méchain, the Sombrero is a nearly edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away from Earth in the Virgo constellation. Méchain was an associate of renowned astronomer Charles Messier, but the object was only scribbled onto Messier's personal copy of the Messier Catalogue. 

It wasn't until two other astronomers — William Herschel and Camille Flammarion — observed the galaxy that it was formally added to the catalog in 1921. Back then, it was merely known as Messier 104. 

The intriguing galaxy later earned its nickname for its uncanny resemblance to a Mexican hat. Its central bulge looks like the crown and a dark dust trail brings to mind a wide brim. Though the object can't be seen with the naked eye, many amateur astronomers enjoy gazing at it through binoculars and small backyard telescopes. 

But different observatories tend to bring out different features in the galaxy. The James Webb Space Telescope homed in on the Sombrero about 1.5 years ago, and showed it in a different light — literally. From Webb's infrared perspective, the hazy bulge was decapitated, revealing instead a smooth core. 

Researchers are interested in the galaxy for its roughly 2,000 globular clusters containing hundreds of thousands of old stars. Though the stars within them are of similar ages, their masses and characteristics vary. 

The new images also highlight a stellar stream emerging from the south side of the galaxy. The feature is faint but vast. 

"The halo and the stellar stream are populated with stars that have been torn from their home galaxies," according to NOIRLab, "hinting at a past galactic merger between the Sombrero and a smaller satellite galaxy."

Blue Origin successfully launched and landed its New Glenn rocket, marking a key step for reusable orbital missions. The booster, “Never Tell Me The Odds,” completed another flight after its earlier mission and landed on the droneship “Jacklyn.” It’s a significant milestone for Space technology and reusability.

Astronaut and Artemis II pilot, Victor Glover, spoke about seeing parts of the moon that no other human has seen and getting to manually 'fly' the Orion spacecraft.

We're approaching the Full Moon, which means the Moon is shining big and bright in the sky. It's day 10 of the lunar cycle, and with so much of its surface illuminated, there's lots for us to see. Keep reading to see exactly what you can spot.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, April 27, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 82% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars, the Mares Frigoris and Nectaris, and Apennine Mountains should also come into view. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 15 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We're now in the Waxing Gibbous phase of the lunar cycle. This means most of the Moon’s face is lit up at this point, making it especially bright in the night sky. Read on to see what details you can spot tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, April 26, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 73% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you're looking at the Moon with just your naked eye, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the Mare Crisium, Copernicus Crater, and Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars, the Mare Frigoris, Posidonius Crater, and Apennine Mountains should also come into view. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rupes Altai, and Rupes Recta.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA's Curiosity mission has found so many simple carbon-based molecules on Mars over the years that the discoveries may now seem altogether routine. 

Scientists know those ingredients matter because life on Earth depends on carbon, but the discoveries have often felt limited, like finding a few breadcrumbs without the loaf.

Now a new lab result from the rover suggests those earlier "crumbs" may have been fragments of something bigger: much more complex carbon material. That means a record of the planet's ancient, long-gone chemistry is locked inside Martian rocks, and scientists have a way to tap into it.

Curiosity ran a unique experiment on a rock sample it collected six years ago, using a special chemical and heat. The technique revealed 21 different organic molecules, the largest set found on the Red Planet so far, said Charles Malespin, the space agency's lead scientist for the rover’s chemistry lab.

The findings, published this week in Nature Communications, raise the stakes in the search for life on Mars. The study suggests the planet didn't just have scattered ingredients for biology on its surface. Mars actually managed to retain that material inside rocks for billions of years. That preservation doesn't prove the Red Planet was habitable, but it does point to past conditions gentle enough to protect complex carbon compounds — perhaps the same mild environment needed to support life itself.

"Before you can have life, you need an environment where that life can get what it needs to survive," Amy Williams, the paper's lead author from the University of Florida, told Mashable. "Our discovery not only expands the catalog of known molecules, but tells us that some of the building blocks for life as we know it on Earth were also present on Mars in the ancient past."

Among the cache were seven never-before-seen molecules on Mars, including a nitrogen heterocycle, a ring-shaped structure more complex than a simple carbon chain. Nitrogen stands out because it plays a central role in DNA and RNA on Earth, the molecules that carry genetic information for every organism.

These nitrogen heterocycles haven’t just been absent from previous Mars measurements — they've also never been found in Martian meteorites that fell to Earth, Williams said. She has called the discovery "profound."

NASA's Curiosity rover explores a clay-enriched area in Gale Crater on Mars. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

Other detections included naphthalene and benzothiophene. Those compounds typically form when larger carbon structures break down, supporting the idea that the original material inside the rock was complex.

Living things could have produced these organic molecules, but scientists can't say that yet. Chemical reactions between water and rock can also create them. Still, researchers are encouraged because the detections show Mars' radiation, climate, and other harsh conditions didn't completely erase this raw material. That resilience bodes well for future experiments and missions: If life ever emerged on Mars, scientists may be able to detect molecules made by long-extinct alien microorganisms.

The sampled rock formed about 3.5 billion years ago in Gale Crater, a basin that once held water. If Mars ever developed life, or even came close, this kind of preserved material is where scientists would expect to find chemical traces of that attempt. The specimen came from a location nicknamed Mary Anning, after the English paleontologist.

The actual drill hole where Curiosity took the rock sample for the chemistry test is labeled Mary Anning 3 in this annotated image. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

The rock’s clay-rich setting may explain how the chemicals survived. On Earth, clay can trap and protect organic material from breaking down. The same process appears to have worked on Mars.

For NASA to run the experiment, Curiosity used a solvent called tetramethylammonium hydroxide, or TMAH, in methanol. The rover mixed the liquid with powdered rock, allowing its instruments to more easily spot certain carbon-based compounds. The powerful testing technique gives scientists a closer look at subtle hints of life that standard tests might miss.

Curiosity’s onboard lab has carried only two small containers of this chemical for its entire mission. The team recently used the second and final cup, as Mashable previously reported. Between the first test in 2020 and the second one this year, scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center redesigned the experiment into a three-stage process to better mirror lab techniques used on Earth.

"We're really excited about seeing the results," Vasavada told Mashable in February. "These are quite complex analyses to interpret and understand, so it will take a few months for the team to be confident in knowing what they've found."