Space, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 28, 2023

India's 1st mission to study the sun launches Sept. 2

India is gearing up for its first-ever mission to study the sun. The mission's observatory, called Aditya-L1 (Aditya means sun in Sanskrit), has arrived at its launch site on the island of Sriharikota, on India's east coast, and is due to launch on Sept. 2, according to the Indian Space...

Sep 4, 2023

15 jaw-dropping spacewalk images

Astronauts are some of the most adventurous explorers among us. In this thrilling gallery, American and international astronauts undertake various spacewalks for research and repair against the stunning backdrop of Earth. 1. Helping Hubble Astronaut Steven L. Smith moves along the Hubble Space Telescope while docked in the space shuttle...

Sep 6, 2023

SpaceX launches record-breaking 62nd orbital mission of the year

SpaceX has set a new launch record. The company sent 21 of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit on Sept. 3 atop a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:47 p.m. EDT (0247 GMT on Sept. 4). It was SpaceX's 62nd orbital mission of 2023,...

Sep 7, 2023

Perseverance rover spots a shark fin and crab claw on Mars

It looks like something fishy is happening on Mars. NASA's Perseverance Rover recently spotted a shark-fin-looking outcrop and an accompanying crab-claw-like boulder on the Red Planet. Since arriving on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, the rolling robot has been exploring the Jezero Crater on Mars while hunting for signs of...

Sep 8, 2023

In a 1st, NASA's Perseverance rover makes breathable oxygen on Mars

In a first-of-its-kind experiment, NASA's Perseverance rover has produced enough oxygen on Mars to keep an astronaut alive for three hours. The rover, which first touched down on Mars in February 2021, produced the element using its Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) device — which generated the oxygen...

Sep 10, 2023

Space photo of the week: Gargantuan sunspots photobomb the world's largest telescope

What it is: The Extremely Large Telescope, which will be the world's largest telescope when it begins operations in 2028 When it was taken: Aug. 28, 2023, and published Sept. 4, 2023 Where it is: At the peak of Cerro Armazones, at an altitude of 9,850 feet (3,000 meters), in...

Sep 11, 2023

See a European satellite take a fiery fall through the atmosphere in world-1st mission

The European Space Agency has revealed final images of a trailblazing, wind-profiling spacecraft ahead of its fiery descent into the atmosphere. On Sept. 5, the European Space Agency (ESA) released an animation constructed from the final eight images captured of its wind-measuring Aeolus spacecraft. The combined radar images show how...

Sep 12, 2023

New poppy seed-sized fuel pellets could power nuclear reactors on the moon

Scientists in the U.K. have created mini, seed-sized nuclear fuel cells that could power futuristic flower-shaped reactors on the moon as soon as 2030. The tiny new fuel cells, developed by researchers at the Nuclear Futures Institute at Bangor University in Wales, are roughly the size of poppy seeds, which...

Sep 21, 2023

Oops! US Space Force may have accidentally punched a hole in the upper atmosphere

A rocket carrying a U.S. Space Force satellite into orbit may have punched a hole in Earth's upper atmosphere, after lifting off with just 27 hours' notice — a new record for the shortest amount of time from getting the go-ahead to actually launching. Firefly Aerospace, a company contracted by...

Sep 24, 2023

NASA's OSIRIS-REx capsule returns to Earth with a sample from the 'potentially hazardous' asteroid Bennu

NASA's OSIRIS-Rex asteroid-sampling mission, tasked with finding hints about the origins of life on our planet, has returned to Earth from a seven-year journey to the other side of the solar system. The billion-dollar spacecraft fired its descent capsule from a height of roughly 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) above Earth...

Sep 25, 2023

India's Chandrayaan-3 moon lander fails to answer wake-up call, may be dead for good

Engineers at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have begun attempts to wake the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander and rover from hibernation after the two-week frosty lunar night. On Friday (Sept. 22), ISRO said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it has made attempts to establish communication...

Sep 28, 2023

Record-breaking astronaut Frank Rubio finally returns to Earth after accidentally spending 371 days in space

Dr. Frank Rubio, the first American astronaut to live in space continuously for more than a year, has returned to Earth. He spent 371 consecutive days on the International Space Station (ISS), eclipsing the nearly yearlong stints of astronauts Mark Vande Hei (355 days) and Scott Kelly (340 days). The...

Oct 2, 2023

Watch Chinese astronauts light a spherical fire in risky open-flame experiment on Tiangong space station

China's Shenzhou 16 astronauts conducted an eye-raising experiment in space involving open flames aboard the Tiangong space station. Astronauts Gui Haichao and Zhu Yangzhu lit a candle during a live lecture broadcast from China's Tiangong space station on Sept. 21 to demonstrate how flames burn in microgravity. Strikingly, the flames...

Oct 5, 2023

US government issues 1st-ever space junk fine, charging satellite TV company whopping $150k

The United States government has handed out its first-ever fine to a private company that left space junk in orbit. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a $150,000 fine to satellite television provider DISH for not safely deorbiting its EchoStar-7 satellite. The satellite was launched in 2002, and DISH...

Oct 9, 2023

New Chinese space telescope will 'outdo Hubble', researchers claim

China is readying a major project that not only augments the nation's astronomical research agenda but bolsters the use of the country's space station complex. And there are bragging rights associated with China's star-studded venture. The spacecraft is called Xuntian, known as the Chinese Survey Space Telescope or the Chinese...