Space
Articles under the Space category.
Chang'e-6 samples redraw the Moon's hidden heat map
Fresh analyses of Chang'e-6 farside samples point to a mantle roughly 100 degrees Celsius cooler than the nearside and basalts that crystallized near 1,100 degrees Celsius. With South Pole–Aitken dated to 4.25 billion years, lunar base planning now shifts to thinner lids, smarter drills, and focused relays.
Starship Flight 11: the pivot from spectacle to operations
On October 13, 2025, SpaceX plans the eleventh Starship test with objectives that trade viral moments for repeatable procedures. Here is what is new, why it matters for rapid reuse, and what to watch on launch day.
China’s Tianwen‑2 Is Sampling a Quasi‑Moon, Then 311P
Launched in May 2025, China’s Tianwen‑2 is on course to sample Earth’s quasi‑moon Kamoʻoalewa, then use an Earth swingby to set up a second act at active asteroid 311P. One spacecraft, two targets, a faster, cheaper deep‑space playbook.
The Rover That Unlocks Artemis at the Lunar South Pole
NASA’s Lunar Terrain Vehicle is heading toward a 2025 downselect. Inside the rival designs: how they plan to survive polar night, work the shadowed rims, and turn short landings into a lasting foothold at the Moon’s south pole.
JWST’s TRAPPIST-1e result pivots the habitable-worlds race
A September 8, 2025 MIT-led analysis of JWST observations rules out a hydrogen-rich sky and makes a Venus or Mars style carbon dioxide atmosphere unlikely on TRAPPIST-1e. The hunt now shifts to cooler, nitrogen-dominated options and a two-year plan that treats the star as part of the instrument.
NEO Surveyor clears CDR, turning defense into delivery
NASA’s infrared NEO Surveyor has passed Critical Design Review and is moving into build and test for a no earlier than September 2027 launch, shifting planetary defense from plans to a working space-based search for small, dark asteroids.
Euclid’s 2025 debut: rings, lenses, and a billion galaxies
Euclid’s 2025 results turn gravitational lensing into a precision tool. From crisp Einstein rings to panoramic weak lensing maps, here is how wide surveys, AI, and partner observatories will turn hints into answers by 2028.
After Earth flyby, OSIRIS-APEX sets up Apophis reality test
Fresh off a precision gravity assist over Earth on September 23, 2025, NASA’s OSIRIS‑APEX is setting up the first controlled before‑and‑after experiment on the near‑Earth asteroid Apophis. Here is how the team will watch it change in real time and why those measurements matter for planetary defense.
Rubin’s first images to first alerts: the real-time sky begins
With first images unveiled in June 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has entered commissioning toward nightly, petabyte-scale scans. Over the next year, real-time alerts will change what gets discovered, by whom, and how fast astronomy responds.
Lucy’s bowling-pin asteroid and the Trojan decade ahead
On April 20, 2025, NASA’s Lucy skimmed within 600 miles of asteroid Donaldjohanson and found a young bowling-pin contact binary. Here is what that geometry says about early solar system smashups, and the near‑term moves that can supercharge the Trojan encounters.
IM‑2’s tipped landing proved lunar prospecting is here
In March 2025, Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lander reached the Moon’s south pole, tipped over in a crater, and still ran NASA’s TRIDENT drill and MSolo tests. That messy success marks the start of practical lunar resource prospecting and a fast CLPS learning curve.
MoM‑z14 rewrites cosmic dawn as JWST’s farthest galaxy
In May 2025, JWST confirmed MoM-z14 at redshift 14.44, a compact galaxy shining just 280 million years after the Big Bang. Its size, chemistry, and spectrum point to clustered starbursts, not a hidden black hole; and they force a rapid rewrite of how first light ignited. Here is what gets tested next and how ALMA, Euclid, and Roman can prove it.
Flight 11 and Block 3: The Turn to Operational Reuse
Starship Flight 11 closes the Block 2 era and points to a practical Block 3. Catching the booster, hardening the heat shield, and proving propellant transfer could compress costs and make monthly cislunar runs routine.
K2-18b’s biosignature showdown and the road to 5 sigma
Between April and September 2025, teams using JWST reported a 3 sigma hint of dimethyl sulfide or dimethyl disulfide in K2-18b’s atmosphere. Here is what that actually means and the fastest plan to confirm or refute it.
China’s Tianwen-2 targets a quasi-moon, then a comet
Launched May 29, 2025, China's Tianwen-2 will chase quasi-moon Kamoʻoalewa for a 2026 rendezvous, attempt anchor-and-attach sampling for a 2027 return, then slingshot to active asteroid 311P/PANSTARRS. Here is what to watch and why it matters.
New Glenn to Mars: ESCAPADE and the private interplanetary dawn
Blue Origin’s second New Glenn flight is set to send NASA’s twin ESCAPADE probes toward Mars. Pairing low cost smallsats with a commercial heavy lifter could reshape planetary science, enable real time Mars space weather maps, and set a faster deep space tempo through 2030.
Chang’e‑6 rewrites the Moon playbook: a cooler far side
Fresh peer-reviewed results from late September and early October 2025 show the lunar far side’s mantle is cooler, drier, and poorer in heat-producing elements than the near side. Here is what that means for site selection, power, ISRU, and radio science over the next five years.
A Starless Planet Caught in a Record Feeding Frenzy
A free-floating, Jupiter-mass world just set the fastest known accretion rate, blurring the line between planets and brown dwarfs and pointing to a fast path for finding many more starless worlds.