Picture it: A swarm of tiny robot helicopters descends through a reddish-brown sky, landing gracefully on the Martian surface. What are they wearing? Tiny capes.

NASA's SkyFall mission will send a trio of mini rotorcraft to Mars equipped with ground penetrating radar technology which happens to look like little capes. These uniquely designed swaths of fabric look decidedly strange or even accidental in new videos from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that show the little drones practice landing. But these capes are actually flexible antennae that will allow the craft to peer beneath the Red Planet's surface in search of water ice.

"The only way to detect shallow subsurface ice remotely is to fly close to the ground," Adrian Tang, SkyFall’s ground-penetrating radar lead instrument scientist at JPL, said in a statement on Thursday (Aug. 6). "By flying low and slow, a SkyFall helicopter could capture radar images that resolve the fine layering where dry soil gives way to ice, detecting its presence and mapping its extent."

Orbiting spacecraft have studied Mars for decades, imaging the planet and mapping it with radar. But from orbit, their radar is unable to see the first few feet of material just below the planet's surface — a zone where scientists expect to find shallow ice deposits mixed in with the rocks and dust. This work could be important for future astronauts who need to better understand the ground below their feet for safety reasons, and for future travelers searching for accessible ice to process for drinking water, oxygen and fuel.

Skyfall will follow in the footsteps of Ingenuity, the first rotorcraft on another world, which hitched a ride to Mars aboard NASA's Perseverance rover. The new choppers are based heavily on Ingenuity, which weighed just 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) here on Earth. But Skyfall will be more capable than Ingenuity, whose main job was to show that choppers can explore the thin skies of Mars.

SkyFall's tiny cape ground-penetrating radar, which uses a type of flexible antenna called Vivaldi that was invented back in 1978, is designed to survey up to 16 feet (5 meters) below the Martian surface. The radar will be able to reach anywhere from several yards below the planet's surface to the uppermost layers of surface material.

And the antenna's unique design ensures that the SkyFall drones will be able to make these subsurface observations without damaging the equipment during landing.. The antenna is extremely lightweight, and the team miniaturized it to be both the right size and shape to fit the tiny helicopters, which sit just 6 inches (15 centimeters) above the ground at rest. The tricky thing was, the designers had to miniaturize the radar antennae while maintaining functionality. But they did just that, and these tiny radar capes will be able to bend and move out of the way as the rotorcraft do their thing, flying above and landing on the Red Planet.

"Although we managed to shrink the antenna quite a bit, it is about 1.5 times longer than the helicopter’s legs," Christine Gebara, SkyFall ground-penetrating radar mechanical lead at JPL, added in the statement.

"That means during landing, the Vivaldi has to bend out of the way — and if it lands on a rock, it bends even further," she added. "But when the helicopter takes off again, the antenna must spring back into place for data collection. Because SkyFall is expected to make dozens of flights exploring Mars, we needed an antenna that could repeatedly handle those pressures without losing its shape in flight."

To make these little capes capable of withstanding incredible feats on another world, the engineers behind the helicopters covered the antenna in layers of polyester and Vectran, a flexible (but incredibly strong) material that was previously used for the airbag that cushioned NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers during their touchdowns in 2004. The antenna's shape is also reinforced with flexible fiberglass tape springs and a lightweight structure. In total, each antenna weighs a miniscule 5 ounces (142 grams).

But a crafty design isn't enough. Getting to Mars is no small feat, and NASA needs to be sure that these little helicopters and their gear are up to the challenge. So, in JPL's Environmental Test Laboratory, which recreates different elements of environments beyond Earth, the SkyFall team put the rotorcraft and its little radar antenna to the test. They bent and flexed the antenna over and over, recreating multiple landings on the surface, exposed the craft to extreme temperatures, and continually checked to make sure that, throughout this testing, the helicopter could still transmit and receive radar signals. At the end of this testing, the antenna had endured 200 simulated Mars landings and was still working just fine. That is more than twice the number of landings expected from the mission.

"This test checked every box it was supposed to and answered our biggest technical questions," Tang added. "While we still have work ahead of us before the antenna is fully flight-qualified, this was a major milestone, and the hardware performed exactly as expected."

The trio of SkyFall helicopters will put their radar capes to the ultimate test when they fly to Mars. NASA plans to launch this mission to the Red Planet in 2028 aboard NASA's Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the first nuclear fission-powered interplanetary spacecraft.

In a nebula far, far away, colossal clouds of dust and gas tower amongst the stars.

What is it?

This spectacular new image from the James Webb Space Telescope showcases the brilliant majesty of the Carina Nebula, a giant cloud of dust and gas found 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina.

You may have seen the Carina Nebula before — in the first-ever image released from JWST, which has been dubbed "Cosmic Cliffs."

In this new image, captured by JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), you can see the nebula in a whole new light. This snapshot captures a specific feature that is being dubbed the "Treasure Chest," as it vaguely resembles a glowing coffer overflowing with stellar jewels.

This "Treasure Chest" contains a cluster of young stars, approximately 70 stars in total. While these might be young, growing stars, the most massive of the bunch is a whopping 19 times more massive than our sun.

Why is it incredible?

While JWST has looked at the Carina Nebula before, new observations can reveal completely new details and help scientists uncover new information about the nebula and the strange ways in which the universe works.

Right now, scientists think that the star cluster in the "Treasure Chest" is about 1.3 million years old. However, previous estimates thought the grouping could be just 100,000 years old. So, new observations by powerful telescopes like JWST can significantly change our understanding of the cosmos.

With each new observation or data point, the history and context of the universe around us could completely transform. And, as this star cluster grows over time, its stars will become more brilliant. They may therefore illuminate more of this star cluster, potentially revealing details and secrets of this "treasure" that scientists might never have predicted.

Early this morning, a SpaceX rocket slammed into the moon at seven times the speed of sound. Now, lunar orbiters are trying to get a look at the aftermath.

This morning (Aug. 5) at about 2:35 a.m. EDT (0635 GMT), the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the moon. To dissect what exactly happened, scientists are looking for imagery of the crash site, with the help of a couple of moon probes.

"NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and NASA’s ShadowCam instrument on the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter will look for opportunities to capture before‑and‑after imagery of the impact site," NASA spokesperson Rob Garner, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told Space.com. "Image availability depends on several factors, including the impact location, lighting conditions, and when each spacecraft’s orbit next carries it over the area, which may take a few days to receive any imagery."

While you've likely seen the first stages of Falcon 9 rockets gracefully land back on Earth for reuse, the rocket's 9,000-pound (4,000 kilograms) upper stage is disposable. Typically, it's sent to burn up in our atmosphere after its missions are over.

However, that wasn't possible with this rocket, which launched two private lunar landers — Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and Tokyo-based ispace's Resilience — to a high, moon-crossing Earth orbit in January 2025. The Falcon 9 upper stage used most of its fuel getting to this distant location and couldn't make it back to deorbit in Earth's atmosphere.

So the company performed a different maneuver to take care of this upper stage, Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science and Dragon programs at SpaceX, said during a press conference on Aug. 3.

"For high-energy missions, we need to perform a different maneuver to ensure the second stage itself is safe per the appropriate rules and regulations, and so we did that here," she said.

But the rocket body was still subject to natural forces, which acted on it over time.

"What has happened is, essentially, a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path towards the moon," Scheiman said.

The Falcon 9 upper stage ended up slamming into the moon this morning at about 5,400 mph (8,690 kph). It likely blasted out a crater up to 89 feet (27 meters) wide, according to scientists' calculations.

This was certainly not the original intended outcome for this rocket. But it presents an opportunity for researchers, who plan to take advantage of it to learn more about the moon.

"NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office will attempt to image the impact around the predicted time using ground‑based telescopes at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville [Alabama]," Garner added. "Because the impact flash and plume are expected to be faint, the chance of seeing anything from Earth remains low, and local weather can affect observations as well. Any data collected will help scientists better understand impacts from artificial objects and the potential effects on future lunar exploration."

Today's impact took place on the sunlit side of the moon, the brightness of which made observations difficult for skywatchers hoping to watch the crash from afar with telescopes. But the two lunar orbiters might be able to see not just the crash and impact crater but also the plume of dust kicked up by the rocket's death dive.

So far, observations from Earth have revealed some information. Scientists at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona reported detections of a lunar plume from the impact.

"We can safely say that we measured a response from the rocket stage impact as a sodium and lithium gas plume a few 10’s of kilometers in size lasting between 5 and 10 minutes after impact," Carl Schmidt told Inside Outer Space's Leonard David.

Such images of the event would provide "an opportunity to test pipelines for measuring flash properties to locate impact events seismically, and to better understand the multi-modal hazards posed to future lunar infrastructure and astronauts from space debris impacting the moon," researchers led by Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico wrote in a recent paper discussing the then-upcoming event.

So hold tight, as researchers are now eagerly collecting and analyzing the images captured by these orbiters, and we might get images of the rocket crash, the lunar plumes and remaining aftermath soon.

A planet-hunting spacecraft named Plato just passed a series of critical tests as it prepares for the challenges of outer space.

What is it?

Gleaming in the light of a laboratory, this box of electronics is actually the European Space Agency's Plato spacecraft sitting inside a special test chamber where it underwent critical tests ahead of its planned spaceflight.

The Plato (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) probe is designed to study terrestrial exoplanets, or rocky planets outside of our solar system that are Earth-sized or smaller.

This chamber, called the Maxwell Test Chamber (which is located at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands), is an enclosure made of conductive metal that blocks electromagnetic fields. On top of the conductive metal are foam spikes. Combined, they block out and/or absorb all electrical signals and sounds to mimic some aspects of the environment of the vacuum of space.

In this enclosure, the team turned on Plato's electronics to make sure that signals from some of the probe's instruments don't interfere with other systems or electronics on the craft. With all other signals blocked out, scientists had a clear look into how it might perform in space.

Why is it incredible?

This test is critical as Plato will need to be able to collect data and run its instruments without interference from electronics or signals from elsewhere on the spacecraft. But it's pretty impossible to ensure that things would work as planned amidst the "noise" on planet Earth.

To get any spacecraft ready to operate in the void of space, researchers conduct all sorts of tests to make absolutely sure that they're up to the challenge. In addition to tests like this, spacecraft can be placed in extremely hot or cold temperature chambers or even shaken around to make sure that they can handle the violent conditions of a rocket launch. It's amazing how we can recreate different aspects of outer space here on Earth to prepare for these missions.

LOS ANGELES — Standing in the shadow of the space shuttle Endeavour, a group of retired NASA astronauts announced their plan to travel the country visiting colleges to try to inspire younger generations to get out and vote. This campaign comes as we lead up to the November midterm election.

This past year, a group of retired NASA astronauts teamed up for a single cause: to defend the U.S. constitution. They banded together as part of a non-profit, non-partisan activist organization called Astronauts for America. So far, they have been speaking out, using their astronaut expertise, platforms, cultural relevance and role model status to speak out in support of "science, evidence-based decision-making, public service and the rule of law," their website reads. Now, as the group announced at an event at the California Science Center's new air and space center — home to the shuttle Endeavour — they're hitting the road on a campaign tour of colleges called "Vote for Freedom."

"We have to do what we can to ensure that the country makes it through the challenges that we're dealing with here, and that is the message that we're going to be taking to colleges and universities," Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart told Space.com. "And the agency that we have, the immediate agency, is to vote."

This tour will send astronauts from the group on a four-month jaunt across the country. Astronauts from the group's more than 100 members will visit state and community colleges, county fairs and even town halls, aiming to reach first-time voters and young people who might be new to voting.

"I'm really excited to look a bunch of younger Americans in the eye and make sure that they know that someone that they can trust said: ;Listen, you matter, because our country matters, and our country needs you,'" former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman told Space.com.

"It's with a uniquely American kind of freedom that we were able to go to the moon, and that same freedom launched the spaceship behind us 25 times into space. Now we see those freedoms under heavy threat," former NASA astronaut Steve Smith said during the event. "We're seeing chaos instead of community, violence instead of votes, lies instead of laws, and fear instead of fate. That's how democracy and freedom die."

"The mission is all that matters. Now, our country is the mission, and our message is simple: going to the polls is one small step for you, and one giant leap for our country," Smith added.

This campaign leads up to the U.S. midterm elections this November. Midterm elections happen halfway through every four-year presidency. This election allows voters to decide what Congress looks like, and which political party controls Congress. This can ultimately have a major impact on what laws and decisions are passed moving forward, and whether Congress will reject or change actions by the president moving forward. And this group of astronauts is serious about the importance of getting people out to exercise their right to vote.

"I'm a child of the segregated South; I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina," former astronaut and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, who also serves as a steering committee member for Astronauts for America, said at the event. "I graduated in 1964. Anybody know what happened in 1964? The Voting Rights Act. So, as a person growing up in my hometown, it wasn't a guarantee that my mom and dad were going to be able to go out and vote. I look at what's going on today about people trying to restrict the ability of people to cast their ballot. That's not who we are. That's not America."

The group of astronauts recently spoke out about voting access after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of protecting the right to absentee voting, in response to attempts by the Trump administration to place restrictions on the current voting process. Especially leading up to the November midterms, each vote carries significant weight. And while this nonpartisan group isn't telling you who to vote for, they do think that everyone who can should vote.

"As astronauts, we signed an oath to our nation, and we are mission-oriented people. And our nation is now the mission," Coleman added. "We need to recognize that everyone's voice is important, and one of the voices that we don't hear very much is the young people. And we want them to understand that, even though sometimes change can seem daunting, their perspective is really important, and, you know, their voice is important."

In satellite data captured over Antarctica, what appears to be a beautiful, colorful hummingbird emerges from the crest of a mountaintop.

What is it?

While there are no hummingbirds flying around Antarctica, we can see what looks like a small, purple bird in a new satellite image of an Antarctic mountain. The dark belly of this "bird" at the center of this image is actually the top of the mountain Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja in East Antarctica.

What looks like a bird's tail is a stream of ice flowing northeast all the way out to the ocean, and what appear to be feathers splaying outward from the mountaintop are actually crevasses down the mountain. These crevasses are formed by a glacier fracturing the mountain's surface as it flows in the icy current toward the ocean.

This view was captured by radar instruments onboard the satellite NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) that launched as a collaboration between NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). The director of NASA's Earth Science Division called NISAR "the most sophisticated radar we've ever built" in a pre-launch briefing last year.

Why is it incredible?

At first glance, this image is puzzling. What could it possibly be? Its bold colors and sharp lines evoke almost alien qualities. But the strange beauty of the shapes and colors in this satellite image reveal important information about glacier movements on the mountain.

"First, it's a beautiful image, with rich details of features that provide insights to how the glacier is moving. Then, because radar can often see through snow and deep into the ice, NISAR can observe fundamentally different properties of Antarctic ice than can be seen in optical imagery," Seongsu Jeong, the signal analysis engineer who produced the image at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "With NISAR we're seeing what's hidden beneath the surface."

And now anyone can explore NISAR's data. Earlier this week, on July 20, NISAR started making the data from its radar instruments public. Moving forward, mission teams will be rolling out this data so researchers everywhere can use it to study and protect our ever-changing planet.

You're looking at history. What might seem like a simple black-and-white picture of some rocks is actually the first photograph ever taken on the surface of Mars.

What is it?

Bright and early on the morning of July 20, 1976, NASA's Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars. This moment 50 years ago marked the first fully successful touchdown on the Red Planet, and, pretty much as soon as it landed, Viking 1 captured the first image of the Martian surface.

The Soviet Union had already made multiple Mars landing attempts, all of them failures to some degree. The nation's Mars 3 lander did manage to survive its landing initially in December 1971, but it lost contact less than two minutes later.

Viking 1 did more than just survive. While its mission tasked the lander with studying the planet for 90 days after landing, it lasted over six years on the planet and made some incredible observations. The Viking 1 lander worked in tandem with an orbiter by the same name, and was soon joined at Mars by Viking 2, another lander/orbiter pair.

Why is it incredible?

It has now been 50 years since Viking 1's historic first, which opened our eyes to the Martian surface. And NASA has kept improving technologies and exploring further on Mars ever since. Agency rovers began scouring the planet's surface in the 1990s, so we have gathered data on the planet's surface for decades upon decades at this point.

But in 1976, no one had ever seen the surface of Mars close up. This view was preceded by science fiction like Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles," which painted fantastical possibilities about what it might really be like on Mars. With Viking 1's view, we finally got some concrete evidence of the reality on the planet.

In 50 years, our understanding of Mars, our solar system and beyond has grown tremendously. But with each major accomplishment, we can look back at previous milestones such as this to see the stepping stones that paved the way to get us there.

A young cluster of galaxies sparkles under a cosmic glow that's 4.4 billion years old. This peek into the past shows the stellar spectacle of a galaxy cluster still forming.

What is it?

The James Webb Space Telescope snapped this image of the galaxy cluster MACS J0553.4-3342 on July 3 using its near-infrared camera (NIRCam). The glorious, glimmering sight is actually a massive young galaxy cluster forming 4.4 billion years ago. A galaxy cluster is a grouping of galaxies held together by gravity. Galaxy clusters can contain hundreds or even thousands of galaxies and are the largest known structures in the entire universe that are held together in this way.

Why is it incredible?

Because light takes time to travel through space, and because the JWST can look incredibly far out into space, this telescope acts as a sort time machine.

This power isn't unique to the JWST, however. Other telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope, for instance, have similarly peered back in time through the cosmos and revealed some incredible, ancient sights. However, the JWST's specialized instruments like NIRCam allow the telescope to pick up incredibly faint light from galaxies remarkably far away. This greatly stretches how far back in time we can see.

But the really incredible thing is, you can look back in time yourself — with only your eyes. While JWST can look exceptionally far out into space and can capture the very faint light of ancient galaxies, the light coming from the stars you can see with your bare eyes also had to travel over incredible stretches of time to reach you. Think about this: the light coming from a constellation you love may have traveled across millions of light-years to get to your eyes.

The wildfires tearing across Canada are so extreme that the smoke billowing upward can be seen from space.

What is it?

Over 850 wildfires are currently devastating Canada, as reported by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center. The fires are spreading across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario; most remain completely uncontrolled.

In addition to the immense destruction caused by the fires themselves, the smoke from these fires is causing serious concerns about dangerously poor air quality all across Canada and even in the northeastern United States. As far as New York, the air quality on Thursday (July 16) was labeled "very unhealthy" after the state activated emergency air quality protocols.

The smoke is so expansive it's clearly visible in this image captured on July 14 from Earth orbit.

Why is it noteworthy?

Studying wildfires and wildfire smoke from orbit can give us a bigger picture view of these catastrophic event. This data is important for disaster relief in the short term — but also in the long-term. With climate change continuing to progress due to human activities like burning coal for cheap power, we can expect natural disasters to worsen. Among the many effects of climate change, this includes longer and more intense wildfire seasons, especially in regions that are already susceptible to fire such as these regions across Canada.

The new image was captured by the NOAA-21 satellite with the instrument VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imagine Radiometer Suite). You can see massive plumes of smoke over southeastern Canada treading into the northeastern U.S. Thick smoke covers swaths of Canada's landscape and wisps of smoke trail all the way down through New York and across the U.S.

Most of this smoke, at least the smoke we can see in this satellite image, is coming from wildfires in northwestern Ontario. As the wildfires continue to burn, satellites like NOAA-21 will be keeping watch.

This might be the closest we've gotten to finding a planet that could support life: Astronomers have detected an atmosphere around an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting in the habitable zone around its star, a monumental first.

The rocky planet, called LHS 1140 b, is 48-light-years away from Earth and according to this new research, it has an atmosphere that contains helium. It is also the first rocky planet to have an atmosphere be detected directly. This is the first rocky planet to be found with an atmosphere that is also in the habitable zone, meaning it's at the right distance away from its star for liquid water to potentially exist on the planet. As we continue to search the cosmos for planets that can be considered "habitable," this planet checks more boxes than almost anything we've ever seen.

"We have actually detected directly the helium present in the atmosphere itself, and that's the first direct detection for any rocky exoplanet, which is really exciting … and then there's this added bonus that it's in the habitable zone, which is super exciting for astrobiology and habitability and searching for life," lead author Collin Cherubim, who recently earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University, told Space.com. "It feels kind of surreal."

What's this planet like?

Let's explore this planet and the system where it "lives."

This exoplanet, or planet outside of our solar system, was first discovered in 2017 by a team led by astronomer Jason Dittmann who is now a co-author on this new discovery.

"This planet was found like 10 years ago, and we're just now saying, okay, that's an atmosphere," Dittman told Space.com. "We're slowly narrowing the gap and checking these boxes … we're finding a planet that's rocky, a planet that's of the right temperature and now … it's like okay, we finally found one that has an atmosphere."

And being a rocky planet, "there's definitely a surface … it's made of rocks," Dittman said. What does the planet's surface look like? We can't say yet, but the researchers who found this planet's atmosphere think there's a good chance it could have water.

While it orbits a red dwarf star, which is smaller and cooler than the sun, it orbits closer than we do to our star, maintaining a temperature that keeps the planet in the "Goldilocks zone" where liquid water could exist on its surface.

"It probably also has a lot of water," Cherubim said. "If it has some amount of atmosphere that can provide a bit of a greenhouse effect, which we know that it does now … it will very likely be what we consider to be habitable conditions on Earth, and conditions that would likely support liquid water."

So is it Earth-like? While it's certainly not an Earth copy, this planet can be considered Earth-like in two main ways, Cherubim shared. One: its overall composition. The planet is rocky, likely with an iron core and (now we know) it has an atmosphere. And two: the planet's temperature is just right for liquid water, which is necessary for life at least as far as we understand it on our planet.

Finding an atmosphere

The discovery of the first exoplanet was confirmed just over 30 years ago. Since then, scientists have found over 6,000 exoplanets and counting. And while a few rocky planets have been found in their star's habitable zone, it wasn't until now that an atmosphere has been confirmed around a rocky planet in the habitable zone.

One reason why scientists have had a hard time finding such planets with atmospheres is their stars. LHS 1140 b orbits the most common type of star, a red dwarf, which is about one-third the size of our sun. This type of star remains active for a lot longer than stars like our sun. This activity means it releases bursts of extreme radiation like solar flares and coronal mass ejections. And typically, the extreme radiation around these stars totally strips the atmospheres from the planets orbiting them, so astronomers have wondered if planets orbiting these stars can have an atmosphere at all.

"This discovery is a big deal because it's showing that at least this rocky planet has retained an atmosphere over billions of years," Cherubim said. It's "a bona fide, robust way of saying yes, atmospheres can survive on rocky exoplanets."

It's possible that other gases beyond helium are in the planet's atmosphere, and it's possible that some of its atmosphere was previously stripped away by its star's radiation. But the red dwarf that this planet orbits is roughly 6 billion years old, a few billion years older than the age at which their extreme radiation activity begins calming down. So while some helium is still slowly escaping the planet's atmosphere over time, the team expects the planet to retain an atmosphere, Dittman shared. After all, even Earth's helium is slowly escaping our own atmosphere.

The proof is in the atmosphere

To prove that this planet has an atmosphere, the team started with a prediction that Cherubim made during graduate school. It all started with a theoretical model and a sneaking suspicion that there must be rocky exoplanets with atmospheres other than Earth.

"This came out of a very specific prediction from a planetary evolution model that I actually developed myself, from scratch, from first principles, for my Ph.D. as a theorist, and I made a very specific prediction about this planet," Cherubim said. "And then I went out and did a pretty unexpected, weird thing using this technique that's typically reserved for observing giant planets, and I used it for a rocky planet, which nobody has done before.

"And lo and behold, I made this measurement that was actually consistent with my prediction. And it was really nice to kind of close the whole loop of the scientific method."

The team took the theoretical model that Cherubim developed in graduate school and put it to the test using the Warm Infrared Echelle (WINERED) Spectrograph on the Magellan Observatory in Chile. And with their observations, they were able to see LHS 1140 b and another planet both transit, or pass in front of, their star in the same night. With this spectrographic data, they could identify the signatures of molecules in the atmospheres of these planets as they passed in front of the star. And while one planet yielded no results, this planet showed a direct, undeniable helium signature.

Are there aliens?

When looking at a planet that is rocky, has an atmosphere, and is in the habitable zone (meaning it could have liquid water), the question of life comes up quite quickly.

But the researchers don't have enough data to make that conjecture. "I'm not claiming this planet has life," Cherubim made clear. With further investigation, scientists could better understand what else might be in this planet's atmosphere, and they could confirm if it has water. Further observations might not be able to confirm habitability or identify any life on the planet, but they could at least help us to better understand planets like this.

With this being the first planet of its kind discovered, further exploration will help us to put the pieces together. But it is certainly a major step forward in the eternal human quest to answer the question: are we alone?

This work was described in a study published in the journal Science.

A laser star guide beams up from the Gemini South Observatory and into the Milky Way on Cerro Pachón, a mountain in central Chile.

What is it?

The Gemini South Observatory, located in Chile, is one of two Gemini Observatories with the other located in Hawaii (named Gemini North, or 'Alopeke) on the volcano Mauna Kea.

Each Gemini Observatory has a 26.6-foot (8.1-meter) telescope. On the same mountain in Chile sits the 13.4-foot (4.1-meter) SOAR telescope.

In this photograph captured by Petr Horálek, an audiovisual ambassador for the U.S. national center for ground-based, nighttime optical astronomy at NOIRLab (the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), it looks like Gemini South is about to be beamed up into the night sky.

However, there isn't some alien ship behind that laser beam. Instead, Gemini South is beaming up a laser guide star, or a powerful laser that creates the appearance of a fake star in the night sky. This fake star acts as a reference point, helping the telescope to calibrate and correct any light distortions.

Why is it incredible?

Even from just this photograph, which shows an observatory in action, it's clear why this mountain is a hotspot for astronomical observing.

These peaks are chosen for many reasons, including their altitude and how far they are from bright lights that could affect observations. But even in a regular photograph, Horálek was able to show the incredible beauty of the glow of the Milky Way's heart above the mountain range, with every color in the rainbow popping up in the gas and dust across our galaxy.

Even the framing of the shot draws you in, as the viewer feels almost pulled down the road toward the observatory and right up into the Milky Way.

A space rock exploded through a bedroom ceiling in New Jersey, and scientists have now traced its origins to a strange, briny asteroid once visited by a NASA mission.

Two years ago on July 16, 2024 in the middle of the afternoon, a sonic boom shook New York City as a fireball streaked through the sky. The culprit? A rock the size of a heavy airline bag weighing roughly 110 pounds (50 kilograms). The meteorite hurtled over the east coast before crash-landing in a house in Hillsborough, New Jersey where the homeowner found it, reeking of sulfur. In studying this meteorite, scientists think that it could have come from the surface of an asteroid where liquid saltwater could have rested, possibly providing clues to life's origins on Earth.

"In a way, you can think of it as smelling the origins of life's atmosphere," lead author and meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center, told Space.com.

Despite its sulfuric stench, in a stroke of absolute luck, this meteorite crashed into the right house. After traveling through our atmosphere and heating up, searing through the sky and then crashing through a roof and then a bedroom ceiling, the meteorite broke apart into pieces. The homeowner not only sprung into action to collect these pieces of space rock into jars, they did so with gloves, protecting the rocks and keeping them remarkably well-preserved.

"He had the wherewithal to put on gloves and take out jars," Jenniskens said. "And for this type of meteorite, carbonaceous chondroits, it's very important because they just suck in every moisture you can think [of]." So if he would've handled the rocks with his bare hands, oils or moisture from his hands could have completely contaminated the rock, which is common in found meteorites. The homeowner also thought to call the American Meteor Society very quickly after recovering the rocks, making these samples unusually pristine.

Of course, some of the rocks were found to have some fiberglass and even carpet remnants on them after crashing through the roof of a house, Jenniskens said. But the integrity of the meteorites was still incredibly well-preserved for scientific investigation.

What did they find in these space rocks?

Once the rock fragments were collected, they were brought in for analysis led by co-author Mike Zolensky, a meteoriticist at NASA's Johnson Space Center. And they found the now-dubbed "Hillsborough meteorite" to be full of organic compounds created through chemical reactions with minerals also present in the rock as well as amino acids. They also found that some parts of the rocks were more altered by water than others.

They classified the meteorite as a CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite, which are primitive meteorites that formed in the early solar system. CM2 meteorites typically come from parent asteroids that haven't been significantly altered by water while CM1 typically comes from asteroids with water. The Hillsborough meteorite doesn't fit neatly into either category, with some pieces of the rock altered by salty water.

This provided evidence that its parent asteroid must have had water, leading them to further classify this rock as a CM1/2, a category between 1 and 2. This is only the second meteorite of this type observed on Earth.

"Thanks to the homeowner’s quick reaction, these are the most pristine CM1/2 meteorites we know of," Jenniskens said in a statement.

They also found small, salty fragments inside the meteorite, leading the researchers to conclude that this rock may have come from a near-surface area of its parent asteroid, where liquid water evaporated and salt accumulated. A salty, briny asteroid.

This salty brine on the rock's parent asteroid could be an important piece to study, as researchers think that such a brine could ignite the chemical reactions between organic molecules and minerals that could create life. Some theories suggest that life on Earth began thanks to minerals and molecules deposited by crashing meteorites, and further study of such a well-preserved piece of a briny asteroid could help to put those pieces together.

And while the team doesn't know the full story behind the organic compounds and amino acids found in this rock, early analysis suggests that the amino acids present formed on the rock's parent asteroid with the help of chemical reactions in this briny environment.

Another major finding came from information from even before the crash. Thanks to reports from members of the public and footage from cameras (even doorbell cameras) across the eastern U.S., experts led by Jenniskens were able to piece together the trajectory of the object. Doppler weather radar at Newark Airport even helped to put the pieces together, detecting a long trail of pebbles stretching from Staten Island to New Jersey falling from the rock as it fell apart and out of the sky. This combined intel provided experts with the object's speed, and the direction from which it came.

In piecing together the rocks' trajectory, "we can say where they came from in the asteroid belt," Jenniskens said. "This one seemed to have come out of the inner asteroid belt."

In fact, he added that this meteorite's parent asteroid likely came from an area of the asteroid belt already observed in a flyby by NASA's Lucy mission, which is exploring the asteroids of the solar system. Could it be possible that Lucy observed the same bit of rock that ended up in a bedroom in New Jersey?

Jenniskens added that "If you hear about a meteorite fall in your area, please check your dash cams and video cameras and security ring [cameras], and even your cell phones." Who knows, you might have even accidentally captured footage that helps researchers to better understand a mysterious rock from space.

And if you live in the greater New York City area and want to get a closer look at this space rock, some of the meteorite fragments will be on display, curated at the American Museum of Natural History.

This work was described in a study published in the journal Science Advances.

Is space … sweet? As it turns out, interstellar space has sugar — and it's the same type of sugar that's found in raspberries (and self-tanners, surprisingly).

A sugar compound called erythrulose has been found near the center of our galaxy, swirling amongst the gas and dust like grains of sugar in a cotton candy machine. More specifically, this sugar was detected in a molecular cloud in the interstellar medium, or the space between star systems in a galaxy. And while we may not be able to use this sugar to make some kind of cosmic candy, scientists think that it could hold the clues to life's origins.

"The detection of erythrulose is very exciting because it opens up the possibility of discovering in space other sugars such as ribose, which is part of RNA, and other important molecules for the origin of life," Carlos Briones, co-author of the study, said in a statement.

Now, this isn't the first time sugar has been found in space. NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission visited the asteroid Bennu and returned samples of the space rock to Earth in 2023. An analysis of those samples revealed strange black grains of material that contained sugars, sugars have been detected in meteorite samples and a study from over 25 years ago even found sugar at the center of the Milky Way.

However, this is the first time sugar has been found in the interstellar medium, and it's also the first "true sugar" found in interstellar space. The difference is that while there have been some sugar-like compounds found in space, "true" sugars have a spine of at least three carbon atoms. Erythrulose has four.

"Our work shows that sugars can form naturally in space," lead author Izaskun Jiménez-Serra, an astronomer at the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid and the Spanish National Research Council, added in the statement.

This newly-spotted sugar is an exceptionally interesting find because erythrulose can change into the ingredients that create nucleic acids, and therefore life. Nucleic acids are essential to life as we know it, carrying information in cells — in fact, both DNA and RNA are types of nucleic acids.

Erythrulose could have "provided the feedstock for the first nucleic acids," Jiménez-Serra added. "That’s why the detection of erythrulose is so relevant for the origins of life."

In interstellar space, stars and planets are born in massive molecular clouds of dust and gas. If there is indeed sugar like erythrulose in these clouds, it could find its way onto asteroids and comets, or other small bodies that might crash into planets. If those objects were to crash into a young planet, that sugar could be left behind and go on to spark life.

In fact, some scientists think that life on Earth could've been sparked by asteroids delivering the materials for life via such collisions during an era where our planet was heavily bombarded by such objects around four billion years ago. Could those space rocks have held sugar from interstellar space and delivered it to Earth, supporting the earliest iterations of life as we know it?

This work was described in a study published July 13 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Towering glaciers flow down the Himalayas' northern slopes like icy giants cascading onto China's Tibetan Plateau.

What is it?

Back in May, from aboard the International Space Station 259 miles (417 kilometers) above Earth, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir peered out the station's windows with her camera and captured a breathtaking sight.

In that fleeting moment from space, she captured the northern slopes of the Himalaya mountains stretching into China. And atop the mountains, slow-moving rivers of glacial ice carve their way downhill.

This view shows the enormity of this mountain range, which separates Nepal from China's Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayas have the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, with over 110 mountain peaks surpassing 24,000 feet (7,300 meters) of elevation above sea level. Ranging across five countries (Nepal, India, China, Bhutan and Pakistan) the mountain range is about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) wide.

Why is it incredible?

With the range being so incredibly expansive, this view from space offers a unique vantage point from which we can see a large swath of the mountains in motion. Even in a helicopter, you would get a fairly localized view of individual mountains in the Himalayas. This view provides a striking scene that you cannot see from the surface of our planet.

This view is also a reminder of how important space is in our evolving understanding of climate change. As our planet continues to change and sea levels rise with warming temperatures, we can see glacial movement from space. This is an important resource to researchers fighting to better understand climate change so we can better fight it. With access to information about glaciers and how they melt, move and flow across the world, we can be better prepared to protect our planet and its inhabitants.

NASA's Curiosity rover has spotted a strange honeycomb texture on the surface of Mars. But what is it?

What is it?

Almost 14 years since landing on the Red Planet, Curiosity is still hard at work exploring. And in new observations, Curiosity has revealed an image that is certainly ... peculiar.

Curiosity went to get a closer look at an area first observed from Mars orbit, and found what appears to be a honeycomb structure in on the planet's surface. Polygonal shapes, nearly identical to one another, make up a pattern almost like a Martian wallpaper or carpet.

But what is it? Why does it look like that? What is a honeycomb doing on Mars?

Why is it incredible?

This is one of many mysteries we have yet to solve on Mars. While the team saw this area first from orbit around the planet, when the rover arrived and saw this structure they were surprised, they shared in a blog post.

In addition to the honeycomb texture, the area was littered with dark rocks and strewn around. But even these pebbles lack explanation. Did they "float" down from higher rock levels, did they launch out of Gale crater during some ancient collision or could they possibly even be meteorites from outside of Mars that ended up strewn across the surface? Researchers think any one of these explanations could be possible.

Previous, similar dark stones have been found on Mars with minerals like nickel that are common in meteorites and uncommon in Mars rocks. But are these similar? Perhaps part of a similar collision event? We don't yet know.

As researchers find new mysteries on Mars, they also continue to find new ways to investigate the unknown. With further study, they will explore both these strange honeycombs and the dark rocks scattered amongst them.

Landing spacecraft on the moon could contaminate ancient clues about how life may have originated on Earth, a new study finds.

As NASA continues on with its plan of sending astronauts back to the moon with the Artemis program, researchers are exploring what possible unintended consequences may arise from humans visiting the lunar surface. For instance, Artemis IV will land astronauts near the moon's south pole and the agency has future plans for building a longer-term moon base on the lunar surface, which would require many more trips. And indeed, a new study has found the exhaust from spacecraft involved with these landings could expel enough methane to contaminate the moon's surface — possibly destroying molecules that could help to explain how life may have originated on Earth.

"We are trying to protect science and our investment in space," senior study author Silvio Sinibaldi, the planetary protection officer at the European Space Agency, said in a statement. "Our activity can actually hinder scientific exploration."

While experts have had concerns for some time about how rocket launches on Earth pollute our planet and atmosphere, scientists have only really considered this issue with our own planet. This is especially because we haven't been to the moon's surface in over 50 years; concerns of accidental effects of a lunar landing simply haven't been top-of-mind. That's what makes this new study so important. It points to a potential issue that could mean that future moon landings might actually be detrimental to science.

Life's clues on the moon?

So why do we think the signs of life could be hiding on the moon? It's actually hiding in ice. Dark craters near the moon's poles, which exist in perpetual shadow, hold ancient ice. This ice is thought to contain material from asteroids and comets that smashed into the moon billions of years ago. Trapped in lunar ice to this day, these bits of ancient collisions could include what the researchers describe as "prebiotic organic molecules," or molecules that could have preceded life on Earth.

It's thought that these molecules from asteroid and comet visitors could have sparked life on Earth, and by studying those possibly trapped on the moon, researchers could be looking at the molecules that ended up combining and creating life as we know it.

The molecular history of life on Earth is pretty much nonexistent on our own planet, as it was largely destroyed by the billions of years of changes we've experienced. But the moon has remained mostly unchanged, so these wells of ice are a uniquely-preserved sampling of pre-life molecules.

"We know we have organic molecules in the solar system — in asteroids, for example," Sinibaldi said. "But how they came to perform specific functions like they do in biological matter is a gap we need to fill."

This ice exists in a somewhat fragile ecosystem, so left alone in darkness, this ice isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But with Artemis, NASA is planning on sending crewed landers to the moon's south pole. That might pose a problem. With computer models in this new study, researchers have shown that the methane exhaust from these landers could very quickly and permanently contaminate this ancient ice, destroying the molecular evidence sealed within.

Inside the simulations

In those computer models, the researchers simulated how methane, the main organic component expelled by planned lunar landers, would spread across the moon's surface after a landing at the south pole. While the simulations included the effects of solar wind and radiation, the moon's lack of an atmosphere caused the methane to spread incredibly quickly, reaching the moon's north pole in under two lunar days.

Within one lunar week (which is roughly seven months on Earth), over half the methane was trapped at the moon's cold polar areas, with a whopping 42% of the substance trapped at the south pole compared to 12% at the north pole. This methane could collect in the same cold pockets where ice and ancient molecules have been collected for billions of years, possibly contaminating this finite, scientific evidence.

"Their trajectories are basically ballistic," lead author Francisca Paiva, a physicist at Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal, said in the statement. "They just hop around from one point to another."

In better news, there may be a way to circumvent some of this methane disturbance. For instance, the study suggests it's possible that by choosing colder landing sites, scientists can avoid having the methane travel as quickly or as far. Additional simulations are needed to better understand how exhaust compounds travel on the moon, however, as well as the risks that this poses for scientific investigations and if there are other materials lunar trips will involve that could contaminate the environment. Above all, the new study's team emphasizes that as we push toward future lunar exploration, it is key to balance our dreams of settling the moon with preserving its priceless history.

"We have laws regulating contamination of Earth environments like Antarctica and national parks," Paiva said. "I think the moon is an environment as valuable as those."

This work was described in a study published last year in the journal the American Geophysical Union.

The Extremely Large Telescope just passed a serious milestone while coming together. But it's not done yet; the immense telescope is about to get even larger.

What is it?

The European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO)'s Extremely Large Telescope is under construction on a mountaintop in Chile.

In this new photo, we can really get an idea of the telescope's size. The snapshot was captured during a milestone moment for the crew working on the observatory. They rotated the telescope's structure around its vertical axis for the first time.

This wasn't just an exercise for the dedicated crew working on the ELT, but rather an important test. The team needed to ensure this rotational motion works smoothly to confirm it's possible to point the telescope at any area of the night sky.

Why is it incredible?

This rotation was no small feat with a telescope weighing about 7.7 million pounds (3,500 metric tons), and we can see some of the crew who made it happen posing with their handiwork. They had to first rotate the telescope by hand just centimeters at a time. This push led to auxiliary motors taking over to complete the full rotation.

At its current size, the ELT is enormous. But it will actually get bigger and heavier. Later on in the process, mirrors and science instruments will be installed, skyrocketing the telescope to over 10 million pounds (4,600 metric tons).

"For me, this is a beautiful reminder of what can be achieved when people push in the same direction, literally and figuratively,” Roberto Tamai, the ELT’s Program Manager at ESO, shown on the right in this image, said in a statement.

Tamai is shown standing next to Marco Sciarra, Executive President of Cimolai (a company working on the telescope's construction), in the middle and Pascal Martinez, ESO's Project Manager for the Dome and Main Structure of the ELT, on the left.

Is it a space jellyfish? Is it an alien? No, it's the aftermath of a SpaceX rocket launch!

What is it?

Have you ever looked up and thought, "Why is there a giant glowing jellyfish cloud in the sky?" If so, chances are that you've seen the remnants of a rocket launch, and not a surprise alien visitor.

In the early hours of July 9, SpaceX launched 29 of its Starlink broadband satellites from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to low Earth orbit. It was the rocket's 36th flight, a record.

The rocket lifted off at 5:25 a.m. EDT (0925 GMT), and the scene it painted in the dark early-morning sky looks truly out of this world. But there is a practical, Earthly explanation.

When a Falcon 9 rocket takes off, its engines expel water vapor and carbon dioxide. As it climbs higher into the sky, the temperature drops and the water vapor quickly freezes, forming ice crystals that trail behind the rocket in the spectacular plume we're seeing here. And this view is made more colorful and striking by the sunlight of early morning.

Why is it incredible?

While this photograph's beauty speaks for itself, it is also a colorful example of how real scientific moments can spark the imagination.

Do you think it looks like a jellyfish? I think it looks like a comb jelly, which isn't actually a jellyfish but rather a different type of transparent, squishy invertebrate that drifts through the ocean. It could also look like a glowing football or even a mythological monster.

Whatever you think it looks like, while we have a real scientific explanation for why this rocket launch was followed by a giant, glowing, uniquely shaped cloud, it's still fun to use our imagination.

A new ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court protecting voter rights could extend to astronauts living and working in space and training internationally, their families, and the multitude of NASA workers who travel to support their missions.

On Monday (June 29), the Supreme Court ruled that mail-in ballots can be counted toward a total vote even if they arrive after election day, as long as they are postmarked by election day. The ruling followed efforts by the Trump Administration to place restrictions on mail-in voting. In a new statement, the nonpartisan activist organization Astronauts for America spoke out in support of the Supreme Court's decision, which supports absentee voting.

"We don't want to see barriers put in place [that] make it more challenging for somebody to exercise their constitutional right of voting," retired NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence told Space.com. Lawrence is a member of Astronauts for America, as well as a veteran of the U.S. Navy, where she served as a captain, engineer and helicopter pilot.

What happened?

An executive order issued by President Trump in March 2026 attempted to place a number of restrictions on voting in the country, including limitations on mail-in or absentee voting. The order directed the United States Postal Service to only transmit ballots for states that compile and submit lists of eligible mail-in voters 60 days before elections, added requirements and complications to mail-in ballots and attempted to limit who receives a ballot in the mail.

This order not only added layers to limit voting access, but it conflicted with existing procedures set by states for absentee voting. Additionally, the U.S. Constitution places the authority to change election rules and processes with Congress, not the president, though this was not the first executive order put out by Trump to attempt to change election rules, CNN has reported.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court blocked the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out this executive order, declaring that mail-in ballots may be counted if they arrive up to five days after election day, as long as they are postmarked by election day.

"This is key to making sure we have free and fair elections, that people have the ability to cast their vote, and it's not an overwhelming burden for them to do that again," said Lawrence.

Astronauts vote (and so do the people around them)

In a statement shared on social media, Astronauts for America commented on the recent ruling.

"We at Astronauts for America are pleased to see the justices take this critical step toward safeguarding free and fair elections, and ensuring that every eligible voter has their ballot counted," the statement reads. "As astronauts, some of us cast our votes from space. As military veterans, many of us relied on voting by mail. Upholding this grace period ensures that astronauts and other Americans are able to exercise their civil rights."

"Voting is the cornerstone of our American democracy, and this is an important step forward in our battle to ensure everyone has the right to vote," the statement continued. "While the Supreme Court ruling should be celebrated, we must continue standing up for our democracy and constitutional principles."

Astronauts have used absentee voting systems for decades, and they do so regularly: Astronauts have been living in orbit on board the International Space Station continuously since November 2000. When astronauts are going to be in space during an election, NASA has a digital system that allows them to submit absentee votes. But as the statement above suggests, astronauts don't just need absentee voting during their space missions.

Astronaut training can take place all around the world, especially if there is a mission with international collaboration. Lawrence shared that, during her tenure with NASA's space shuttle program, there was a 16-month period when she had to live and train full-time in Russia. And, astronauts don't prepare for space in a vacuum. Family members like spouses might travel with them for long-term training, and there are a wide variety of mission managers and support staff for crewed missions (and their families) who might have to be on long-term travel as well.

Additionally, many astronauts like Lawrence are also military veterans who, during their service, are only able to vote through absentee voting, sometimes for years on end. While this ruling extends far past astronauts, even within the space sector, absentee voting has protected the constitutional rights of many.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is finding clues that are leading scientists closer to understanding the origins of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

What is it?

Comet 3I/ATLAS captured the world's attention when it was discovered nearly a year ago on July 1, 2025. The comet was first spotted by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), and is only the third interstellar object every discovered.

The comet swooped through our solar system, passing by Earth at a far (and safe) distance on its tour of our cosmic neighborhood. It is on a long trajectory that will take it out of our solar system, never to return.

In observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists were able to look in the direction the comet as it began moving away from the sun in December of last year. While in close proximity to our star, the sun's heat warmed the comet, making it extra bright and easy to observe.

With this view, astronomers were able to calculate some of the ratios of the chemicals present in the comet. This further highlighted that the object is from out of our solar system, as they found ratios of carbon and heavy hydrogen not found in comets in our solar system.

Researchers described their results in a new paper published June 22 in the journal Nature.

Why is it incredible?

Being only the third interstellar object ever found, people were excited about 3I/ATLAS. They were so excited, in fact, that conspiracies about the object sprouted up quickly. Due to it being from outside of our solar system, some claimed that the comet could be some sort of alien spaceship, similar to the initial suspicions about the interstellar object 'Oumuamua found years earlier.

But with new information coming in from space telescopes, and astronomers eager to understand this object better, these clues are leading us closer and closer to the true origins of this strange comet.