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Latest by G. Torbet

The crew for the second long-duration SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2, are pictured during a training session at the SpaceX training facility in Hawthorne, California. From left are, Mission Specialist Thomas Pesquet of the (ESA (European Space Agency); Pilot Megan McArthur of NASA; Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA; and Mission Specialist Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

How to watch SpaceX launch astronauts to the ISS early Friday

NASA and SpaceX will once again be working together to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station. We've got the details on how to watch.
Artist's impression of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, en route to a January 2019 encounter with Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69.

New Horizons is now 50 times as far from the sun as Earth

A NASA probe which was the first spacecraft to explore Pluto is continuing its journey into the solar system, where it is now almost 5 billion miles from home.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocked its rotor blades, allowing them to spin freely, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

First test flight of Mars helicopter Ingenuity set for tomorrow

NASA's tiny helicopter Ingenuity arrived on Mars along with Perseverance, and after a small issue and some tweaks, it's ready for its first test flight.
This artist's concept shows a hypothetical planet covered in water around the binary star system of Kepler-35A and B.

These five binary star systems could potentially host habitable planets

If you've dreamed of living on an alien world with two suns, researchers identified five double star systems which could potentially host habitable worlds.
nasa visualization two black holes blackhole binary mainsequence 1

Trippy NASA video shows two black holes interacting

NASA has created a visualization of what happens when two black holes pass one another, showing how the gravity of each warps the accretion disk of the other.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A during a brief static fire test ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission, Saturday, April 17, 2021, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX performs Falcon 9 static fire test ahead of second crew mission to ISS

SpaceX has performed a static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the second operational flight of the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station.
NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter using its Left Mastcam-Z camera, on Apr. 16, 2021 (Sol 55).

How NASA engineers are fixing the issue grounding Mars helicopter Ingenuity

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are working on fixing the issue with Ingenuity which is preventing the craft from going into flight mode.
Illustration of SpaceX Starship human lander design that will carry the first NASA astronauts to the surface of the Moon under the Artemis program.

SpaceX will develop the lander to carry NASA astronauts to the moon

NASA has selected SpaceX to develop a lander to take humans to the moon's surface, called the human landing system (HLS), in a contract worth $2.89 billion.
Life on Mars Castles Made of Sand

Castles made of sand: How we’ll make habitats with Martian soil

We can't just bring a bunch of lumber to Mars and build a habitat when we arrive. Instead, NASA wants to make habitats with the red planet's natural resources
Castles made of sand: how we’ll make habitats with Martian soil

Castles made of sand: how we’ll make habitats with Martian soil

The luminous heart of the galaxy M61 dominates this image, framed by its winding spiral arms threaded with dark tendrils of dust. As well as the usual bright bands of stars, the spiral arms of M61 are studded with ruby-red patches of light. Tell-tale signs of recent star formation, these glowing regions lead to M61’s classification as a starburst galaxy.

Hubble captures a spectacular ‘face-on’ Starburst galaxy

Scientists at the Hubble Space Telescope have shared another spectacular image of space showing galaxy M61 with its spiral arms and regions of star formation.
Both sides of the James Webb Space Telescope's sunshield were lifted vertically in preparation for the folding of the sunshield layers.

James Webb telescope packs away its massive sunshield to ready for launch

The massive sunshield of NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope has been folded away for the last time before its launch.
Astronomers have discovered two pairs of quasars in the distant Universe, about 10 billion light-years from Earth. In each pair, the two quasars are separated by only about 10,000 light-years, making them closer together than any other double quasars found so far away. The proximity of the quasars in each pair suggests that they are located within two merging galaxies. Quasars are the intensely bright cores of distant galaxies, powered by the feeding frenzies of supermassive black holes. One of the distant double quasars is depicted in this illustration.

Hubble identifies a 10-billion-year-old pair of quasars in merging galaxies

A new study using Hubble has identified not one but two pairs of quasars in galaxies which are merging, giving clues about the formation of galaxies.
At 24 feet (7.3 meters) across each, Lucy’s two solar panels underwent initial deployment tests in January 2021. In this photo, a technician at Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado, inspects one of Lucy’s arrays during its first deployment. These massive solar arrays will power the Lucy spacecraft throughout its entire 4-billion-mile, 12-year journey through space as it heads out to explore Jupiter’s elusive Trojan asteroids

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft unfurls its solar panels ahead of launch

Later this year, a NASA spacecraft named Lucy will launch on a 12-year mission to visit the asteroid belt. Lucy recently unfurled its solar panels in a test.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocked its rotor blades, allowing them to spin freely, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

First flight of Mars helicopter Ingenuity delayed until next week

We'll have to wait a little longer to see data on the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, due to an issue detected during a test of the rotors.
The Soyuz MS-18 rocket blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying three Expedition 65 crew members to the space station.

10 crew members cram aboard International Space Station, but not for long

Three new astronauts arrived at the ISS yesterday, and it'll be a tight squeeze for a few days as there are 10 people now on the station.
Brown dwarfs are often called “failed stars.” They form like stars but are not massive enough to fuse hydrogen into helium as stars do. More like giant planets, brown dwarfs can often have storms in their atmospheres, as depicted in this illustration. Astronomers have recently discovered three brown dwarfs that spin faster than any other ever discovered. Each one completes a single rotation in roughly an hour, about 10 times faster than normal.

These three planets spin so fast that they’re about to tear themselves apart

Astronomers have identified three brown dwarfs which are spinning ten times as fast as a typical planet, so fast that they are on the verge of being torn apart.
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept illustration. The spacecraft launched 20 years ago on April 7, 2001.

NASA’s Odyssey orbiter celebrates 20 years of mapping Mars

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Mars since 2002.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is seen in a close-up taken by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard the Perseverance rover. This image was taken on April 5, 2021, the 45th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

How to watch the NASA live stream about Ingenuity’s first flight on Mars

Tiny helicopter Ingenuity is set to make history this weekend, as it is about to become the first aircraft to be flown on another planet.
Extraterrestrial Energy Life on Mars

Power plants on other planets: How we’ll generate electricity on Mars

The first Mars explorers will need electricity to survive -- but how do you generate power on a dusty planet where solar energy is in short supply?
Extraterrestrial Energy Life on Mars

Power plants on other planets: How we’ll generate electricity on Mars

This image shows an artist’s impression of what the surface of the 2I/Borisov comet might look like.

This comet is a pristine visitor from the earliest days of the solar system

Observations of comet 2I/Borisov show that it has never passed near to a star before, and studying it could give clues to the makeup of the early solar system.
Artist's impression of the James Webb Space Telescope

Here’s what the James Webb Space Telescope will study in its first year

James Webb will investigate how stars are formed, research bodies within our solar system, and even search for the earliest galaxies in the universe.
This image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope revisits the Veil Nebula, which was featured in a previous Hubble image release. In this image, new processing techniques have been applied, bringing out fine details of the nebula’s delicate threads and filaments of ionized gas.

Hubble scientists update famous image of the stunning Veil Nebula

Scientists at the Hubble Space Telescope have released a reworked image of the beautiful Veil Nebula, showing threads of ionized gas winding through space.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter can be seen here with all four of its legs deployed before dropping from the belly of the Perseverance rover on March 30, 2021, the 39th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

NASA’s Mars helicopter touches down on the Martian surface

The first flight of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity is fast approaching. The helicopter has now been deployed by the rover and is sitting on the Martian surface.
Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia begin a new series of four water impact drop tests with a test version of the capsule for NASA’s Orion spacecraft to better understand what Orion and its crew may experience when landing in the Pacific Ocean after Artemis missions to the Moon.

How to watch NASA drop its brand new spacecraft into a massive swimming pool

On Tuesday, NASA will livestream a water impact test on its new Orion spacecraft, checking out how the craft responds to splashing down in a body of water.
A composite image of Uranus, combining data from the optical and X-ray wavelengths.

Scientists discover X-rays coming from Uranus

For the first time, researchers have discovered X-rays being emitted by the planet Uranus.
Engineers and technicians prepare to move the chassis of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft from its shipping container to a dolly inside JPL’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility just after the chassis was delivered by Maxar Technologies in late March of 2021.

NASA spacecraft prepares to visit the metal asteroid Psyche

NASA will soon be visiting asteroid Psyche, which is composed of iron and nickel and has been dubbed the '$10,000 quadrillion asteroid.'
A rock identified by Persverance

The Perseverance rover has found a weird green rock on Mars

The Perseverance rover currently exploring Mars has found something strange: A weird green rock that has scientists puzzled.
Illustration of a planet transiting its host star.

Upcoming Roman Space Telescope could discover 100,000 new exoplanets

The upcoming NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will use a method called microlensing to search for tens of thousands of exoplanets.
life-on-mars-artificial-atmospheres

Artificial atmospheres: How we’ll build a base with breathable air on Mars

Artificial Atmospheres: How we’ll build a base on Mars

Artificial atmospheres: How we’ll build a base with breathable air on Mars

How will we make oxygen on Mars? To get the scoop, we spoke with experts from NASA and MIT who are building a plan to make it happen.
This image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features NGC 7678 – a galaxy with one particularly prominent arm, located approximately 164 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus (the Winged Horse). With a diameter of around 115,000 light-years, this bright spiral galaxy is a similar size to our own galaxy (the Milky Way) and was discovered in 1784 by the German-British astronomer William Herschel.

This peculiar galaxy has one spiral arm brighter than the others

The scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have shared another beautiful space image, this time of a strangely asymmetrical galaxy.
“Night-shining” clouds form at high altitudes in late spring and early summer.

Here are an astronaut’s favorite photos of Earth taken from space

An astronaut who served on the ISS and members of NASA's Earth Science and Remote Sensing unit share their favorite photos of Earth taken from space.