(NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio)
Based upon current knowledge and likely users, the only potential lunar reserve is oxygen from regolith as it is present in about the same proportion anywhere on the moon. Defining it as a reserve, however, requires economic and legal issues yet to be fully addressed.
A small asteroid was on a collision course with Earth today, but don't worry. It burnt up harmlessly in Earth's atmosphere. Earlier today, the European Space Agency (ESA) said a 3-foot (1-meter) asteroid will strike the atmosphere and burn up harmlessly around 12:46 p.m. ET (1646 GMT) above the western Pacific Ocean near Luzon Island in the Philippines.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency is moving forward on a one-after-another mission to the main asteroid belt. The probe will conduct high-speed flybys of six asteroids, completing the spectacular sojourn with a rendezvous and orbiting of a seventh mini-world -- and then deploy a small lander onto that final space rock destination.
(NASA, ESA, C. Gallart (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias), A. del Pino Molina (Centro de Estudios de Fisica del Cosmos de Aragon), and R. van der Marel (Space Telescope Science Institute); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
The Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an isolated cosmic fossil, which may offer new insight on galaxy formation. Located about 3 million light-years from Earth, the Tucana Dwarf galaxy sits at the far edge of the Local Group of galaxies, which includes our Milky Way galaxy. This galaxy is home to older stars, leading researchers to believe it may contain traces from the early universe, according to a statement from NASA. "Having such pristine properties enables scientists to use the Tucana Dwarf as a cosmic fossil," NASA officials said in the statement releasing the new image
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 21 Starlink internet satellites to space from the company's Space Launch Complex 40 pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Liftoff is scheduled for 8:35 a.m. EDT (1235GMT). You can watch it live on SpaceX's X account (formerly Twitter), starting about five minutes before liftoff.
An experiment using beams of protons to probe how plasma and magnetic fields interact may have just solved the mystery of how quasars and other active supermassive black holes unleash their relativistic jets.
The idea that aliens may have visited the Earth is becoming increasingly popular. Around a fifth of UK citizens believe Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials, and an estimated 7% believe that they have seen a UFO. The figures are even higher in the US - and rising. The number of people who believe UFO sightings offer likely proof of alien life increased from 20% in 1996 to 34% in 2022. Some 24% of Americans say they've seen a UFO. This belief is slightly paradoxical as we have zero evidence that aliens even exist. What's more, given the vast distances between star systems, it seems odd we'd only learn about them from a visit. Evidence for aliens is more likely to come from signals from faraway planets.
