After a year on Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover is on course for big discoveries | 1 year later, Ingenuity helicopter still going strong on Mars | Star twinkles 18 times in new James Webb Space Telescope image
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The Perseverance rover's second year on Mars should be even more action-packed than the first. The car-sized Perseverance rover landed inside the Red Planet's Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, tasked with searching for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting dozens of samples for future return to Earth.
NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity was supposed to be a museum piece by now. The little chopper landed with NASA's Perseverance rover on the floor of Jezero Crater one year ago today (Feb. 18), tasked with showing that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet's thin atmosphere.
The James Webb Space Telescope finished the first major stage in its long process of aligning the observatory's 18-segmented primary mirror. A single star that the observatory looked at was deliberately rendered 18 times into a hexagonal shape. Eventually, those 18 images will perfectly align into a single, sharp focus, but the interim result portrays a star repeated perfectly in a hexagonal pattern reminiscent of a stunning celestial snowflake.
Our brains change as we age and grow here on Earth. But what happens to the human brain after being in space for a long time? In a new study, a collaborative effort between the European Space Agency and Russia's space agency Roscosmos, researchers have explored how cosmonauts' brains change after traveling to space and back. And they showed how the brain adapts to spaceflight, finding that the brain is almost "rewired," and both fluid shifts and shape changes occur. These changes can last for months after a person returns to Earth, the researchers found.
The Milky Way galaxy feasted on more galaxies in its early days than astronomers thought. The Gaia spacecraft uncovered the remains of an ancient cosmic collision in our Milky Way, revealing a previously unknown galaxy, now nicknamed "Pontus," absorbed by the Milky Way long before our galaxy looked the way it does now.
Astronauts on the International Space Station captured stunning views of February's Full Snow Moon this week. The Full Snow Moon arrived on Wednesday (Feb. 16), offering striking views from Earth and space.
Over the years, many have asked me to recommend books to help them in their study of the stars and constellations. In this column, I'll provide reviews of three books that I consulted during my formative years in the hobby. All three proved most valuable to me for my then-burgeoning interest in astronomy and I'm sure the same would hold true for most anyone who will take the time to use them today. — Joe Rao
The second season of the Netflix series "Space Force" will be available to watch in its entirety, starting on Friday (Feb. 18). The streaming service hasn't given away any clues about what antics might unfold in Season 2, except for the official trailer. But it's likely to pick up with the threat of nuclear war hanging over everyone's heads, the arming, disarming and rearming of Habitat One, potential conflict with the Chinese and General Naird (Steve Carell) heading back to the Space Force to deal with the situation.
Coca-Cola is returning to space, in a new and different way. The iconic soft drink, which was one of the first carbonated beverages to be taste-tested by astronauts in orbit, is now attempting to bring the taste of space down to Earth as a first-of-its-kind, limited edition.
