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Space and Astronomy

44 articles in this category.

Space and Astronomy

While the Moon’s exposed surface can swing from about 127°C to −173°C over its month-long day-night cycle, orbital measurements and thermal modelling indicate that permanently shaded areas inside some lunar pits remain near 17°C. Caves extending from those pits could provide similarly stable conditions, dramatically reducing the heating and cooling required for a future lunar base.

By The Long View · Sep 14, 2026

Space and Astronomy

In early 2026, NASA’s “Big Bang” reconfiguration freed nearly 10 watts aboard Voyager 2 by switching several powered systems to lower-energy alternatives simultaneously, buying its three remaining science instruments at least another year without generating a single additional watt.

By The Long View · Sep 13, 2026

Space and Astronomy

A solar day on Mars lasts 24 hours and 39 minutes, giving it a rhythm remarkably close to Earth’s. On most of the Moon, roughly two weeks of sunlight are followed by two weeks of darkness, as exposed surface temperatures climb toward 127°C and then fall toward −173°C—with no atmosphere to create twilight or soften the transition.

By The Long View · Sep 12, 2026

Space and Astronomy

An 82-year-old woman climbed into a rocket in Texas on July 20, 2021, sixty years after passing the same medical screening tests used for the Mercury astronauts in a privately run program that never sent any of its women to space. She applied to NASA four times without getting in, logged 19,600 flying hours and taught more than 3,000 people to fly.

By Science Blog Editorial Team · Sep 12, 2026

Space and Astronomy

Earth’s Moon produces an unusually accessible near-match during totality, but other moons can also create total solar eclipses

By The Long View · Sep 5, 2026

Space and Astronomy

SpaceX’s Starship V3 produces more thrust than Saturn V and SLS Block 1 combined. After 13 tests without reaching orbit, FAA planning lists Flight 14 for 22 September

By The Long View · Sep 4, 2026

Space and Astronomy

From Titan’s Saturn-facing side, Saturn would span about 5.6 degrees and stay in the same broad part of the sky while librating by roughly 3 degrees each orbit

By The Long View · Sep 3, 2026

Space and Astronomy

Every sight you have ever seen reached your eyes through an extraordinarily narrow band of electromagnetic radiation, roughly 380 to 700 nanometres wide. Beyond it lies an immense invisible universe of infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays—signals surrounding us that human eyes never evolved to detect.

By The Long View · Sep 1, 2026

Space and Astronomy

The $4.3 billion Roman Space Telescope was built around a mirror the U.S. intelligence community no longer needed — a Hubble-sized spy-satellite optic that had been sitting unused in storage until NASA realised it could transform its next great observatory.

By The Long View · Aug 31, 2026

Space and Astronomy

Mercury is almost airless, reaches 430°C by day and −180°C at night, yet MESSENGER data suggest its ancient crust contained volatile-rich layers that may have included hydrated minerals, ices and organic material—leading researchers to speculate that transient habitable niches could once have existed underground.

By The Long View · Aug 30, 2026

Space and Astronomy

Enceladus looks nothing like a habitable world: it is a 310-mile-wide ice moon with a surface near −200°C. Yet an ocean hidden beneath that ice is spraying water, salts, phosphorus and organic chemistry directly into space—allowing a passing spacecraft to sample a potentially habitable sea without ever landing.

By The Long View · Aug 29, 2026

Space and Astronomy

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope launched on August 30 carrying a mirror the same 2.4-metre diameter as Hubble’s. Its main camera will capture at least 100 times more sky in each exposure—what Hubble would need roughly 100 separate pointings to assemble.

By The Long View · Aug 29, 2026

Space and Astronomy

In July 2025, a telescope in Chile spotted a tiny moving dot inside Jupiter’s orbit. Within hours, astronomers realized it was only the third object ever confirmed to enter our Solar System from interstellar space—and barely a year later, it had already raced back beyond Jupiter, never to return.

By The Long View · Aug 28, 2026

Space and Astronomy

From roughly 400 kilometres above Earth, ISS astronauts experience about 16 sunrises every day—not because the Sun rises faster, but because the station races around the planet once every 90 minutes.

By The Long View · Aug 28, 2026