Orbital science, astronomy, remote sensing, and what lies beyond the atmosphere.
A study in Science Advances has found that the Moon’s enormous South Pole-Aitken basin may have been carved by a 260-kilometer differentiated impactor that struck from north to south. If the models are right, future Artemis astronauts near the lunar south pole could encounter rocks that began deep inside the Moon. The work focuses on…
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NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is heading toward one of the most revealing puzzles in the outer Solar System. Jupiter’s icy moon Europa has so few large impact craters that scientists think its surface has been repeatedly renewed from below, according to the mission’s Europa Clipper page. That clean ice may be the visible sign of…
A 2026 study in Geoarchaeology has revived one of space exploration’s most extreme survival stories. The study argues that several probes sent to Venus during the Cold War, including Soviet Venera spacecraft, may still be recognizable on the planet’s surface after decades of crushing pressure and furnace-like heat. That finding gives new weight to the…
A study in Nature Astronomy sharpens one of Mars’ biggest mysteries, whether the northern plains once held an ocean while rivers and lakes shaped other parts of the planet. The evidence points to a Red Planet that spent a long early chapter with surface water, perhaps for hundreds of millions of years. Today, Mars is…
