Articles
How Uranus and Neptune are key to unlocking how planets form
A flagship mission to the ice giants will forever change our understanding of the origin and evolution of our solar system, and those beyond.
Latest
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #77: Lunar soil plants, growing international synergy, more SLS fixes, and other lunar updates
Plants grow in lunar soil, but barely like it For the first time ever, researchers have successfully grown plants in lunar soil, particularly in several samples from Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions. The plants weren’t as healthy as the control group plants were in lunar soil simulants made
Articles
When to worry about an asteroid hitting Earth
And how to treat sensationalist headlines.
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #76: The two worlds of Luna, ispace Europe and some crisp lunar updates
The lunar dichotomy deepens In a recent study, Brown University scientists presented yet another hypothesis for why the two sides of our Moon are completely different worlds. They extensively modeled various impact scenarios that could’ve created the farside 2,600-kilometer wide South Pole-Aitken Basin—the largest, deepest confirmed impact
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #75: One orbiter to rule them all, a pathfinder and a communications relay network
I’m delighted to welcome Open Lunar Foundation as a sponsor of Moon Monday! I love their work on space policy to help ensure that our return to the Moon with humans is sustainable and cooperative. Jessy gave me feedback on the very first Moon Monday issue, and Open Lunar
Explore
Gallery: Our Moon’s captivating craters
Our Moon hosts an incredible diversity of craters, many of which are well preserved since their formation over a billion years ago! Here’s a tour of some of the most intriguing lunar craters—from gigantic ones to literally micro and everything in between. This is the fourth blog post
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #74: Bold new missions and pathways for more lunar science, and loaded hardware updates
I just want to start off by saying how glad I’m for receiving encouraging responses from readers to taking the sponsorships route with Moon Monday last week. Hearing from people I look up to about how they liked the laying out of the rationale and path forward was very
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #73: An ‘over the Moon’ update, a dry rehearsal for SLS, Europe’s pull away from Russian Moon missions, and more lunar developments
I’m stoked to share and welcome Moon Monday’s first sponsors! By supporting this one-of-a-kind newsletter covering global lunar exploration, science and commercial developments, Epsilon3 and The Orbital Index are endorsing our Moon’s unique and fundamental role in space exploration. Epsilon3 is a web-based platform for managing complex
Moon Monday
Launching Moon Monday sponsorships; the lack of a devil is definitely in the details
February 2023 update: I have published a more formal Editorial Independence Policy that supersedes this post. Please refer to that to understand the specific ways in which I ensure editorial independence of my space writings as well as the exact way I run sponsorships. Dear readers and supporters, Today I
Articles
When will we explore Saturn’s moon Enceladus to find alien life?
While NASA will launch Dragonfly later this decade to Titan, another potentially habitable moon of Saturn, no space agency is currently funding a mission to Enceladus.
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #72: A rocket that won't move, a fancy landing simulator, and all lunar updates from last week
NASA’s Moon rocket just won’t move fast enough The NASA SLS rocket’s already delayed wet dress rehearsal test before its much awaited launch for the Artemis I mission later this year is just not getting done. Originally scheduled for April 1-3, it was first delayed by a
Articles
India’s Chandrayaan 2 lunar orbiter is also a Sun watcher
India’s Chandrayaan 2 orbiter doesn’t just study the Moon’s surface but also observes the Sun. Its high-resolution Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) is used to study solar flares and provide a reference for the Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS) instrument, which maps elements on the Moon’