While all the technology of the Apollo program still exists in the form of blueprints and designs, all the human expertise that went into crafting those rockets and spaceships is now either retired or passed away.

The JunoCam on NASA's Juno spacecraft has given us fantastic images of Jupiter and its moons, especially volcanic Io. But the instrument is suffering after years of exposure to Jupiter's intense radiation. There are few options for repairing that damage from such a great distance, but it looks like NASA's done it.

From an engineering perspective, space is surprisingly hot. Or, more specifically, solar energy can make systems that need to be kept at a very cold temperature heat up much more quickly than expected, given the reputation that space has of being cold. In some cases, this heating causes issues with long-term missions, which is why NASA is actively testing a two-stage active cryogenic system to keep one important consumable as cold as possible - fuel.

A team of astronomers using the Netherlands' powerful LOFAR radio telescope has found a white dwarf that's defying everything we thought we knew about them. Located over 3,500 light-years away, it’s pulsing out radio signals every 14 minutes with a twist, its radio waves mysteriously switch between spinning in circles and vibrating in straight lines. It's like discovering a lighthouse that randomly changes the shape of its beam, except this lighthouse is a star that died long ago and should be quietly cooling in space.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jul 22, 2025 NASA has awarded $621,000 to University of Massachusetts Amherst microbiologist James Holden to investigate what life might look like on Europa, Jupiter's ice-covered moon. To pursue answers, Holden is focusing his research on Earth's deep-sea volcanic hydrothermal vents-environments that may closely resemble Europa's subsurface conditions. Europa, beneath its frozen exterior, is believed

Astronomers have detected a Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) that's moving in rhythm with Neptune. It's called 2020 VN40 and is the first confirmed object that orbits the Sun once for every ten Neptune orbits. It could be an example of an object caught by Neptune's gravity.

After 20 years of observations, Georgia State University's CHARA (Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy) has proven its worth. In 2005, The Astrophysical Journal published the first results based on its observations. Since then, more than 275 papers based on CHARA observations have been published, and the facility is still going strong heading into its third decade of operations.

Researchers working with China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) have revealed some of the complexity in a type of cloud in the ISM. They've detected a network of filaments in one Very High Velocity Cloud (VHVC). The observations hint at the complexity that can evolve in these clouds, all without the influence of gravity.

To explore the unknown in deep space, millions of miles away from Earth, it’s crucial for spacecraft to have ample power. NASA’s radioisotope power systems (RPS) that rely on are a viable option for these missions and have been used for over 60 years. Now, NASA is testing a new type of RPS fuel that could become an additional option for future long-duration journeys to extreme environments.

Astronomers have discovered an extraordinary world that defies everything we thought we knew about planets. TOI-2431 b, an Earth sized planet located just 117 light years away, races around its star so fast that it experiences over 1,600 "years" in the time it takes Earth to complete just one orbit. The discovery of this extreme world, with its distorted shape and ultra dense composition, is revolutionising our understanding of planetary systems and revealing just how bizarre and diverse worlds beyond our Solar System can be.

Black holes played a critical role in the formation of the early universe. However, astronomers have been debating for a long time just how critical, as the information we had about early black holes, which exist at high red-shifts, was relatively limited. A new paper from a group of researchers led by Sophia Geris at the University of Cambridge combined several spectra from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to add some context to the formation of black holes early in the universe, and found that there are plenty of smaller ones lurking around, and lending credence to the idea that black holes of all sizes contributed to the formation of our modern universe.

What new exercise methods can be devised for astronauts in space under microgravity conditions? This is what a recent study conducted submitted to the 2025 Technology Collaboration Center’s (TCC) Wearables Workshop and University Challenge hopes to address as a team of Rice University engineering students developed a new type of space exercise harness that could make exercising under microgravity easier and more comfortable.

Stellar mass black holes are created by core-collapse supernovae. These occur when massive stars near the end of their lives collapse in on themselves and form a black hole. Supermassive black holes form through mergers with other massive black holes. But their could be a third kind, called direct-collapse black holes, and the JWST found evidence of one.

Lightning might not strike twice, but black holes apparently do. An international group of researchers led by Tel Aviv University astronomers observed a flare caused when a star falls onto a black hole and is destroyed.

We can understand how Earth formed by watching other planets form in distant solar systems. Powerful telescopes like the VLT are making that possible. New observations show a baby planet sculpting patterns in the gas and dust around its star.

It is true that crewed missions to the Moon are expensive, difficult, and dangerous.

It seems the Moon has been protecting itself from cosmic erosion all along! Using Apollo moon dust for the first time, a team of researchers found that the lunar surface's rough, porous texture acts as a natural shield against solar wind bombardment, thus reducing erosion rates by up to ten times more than previously thought. This groundbreaking finding not only solves a long standing puzzle about the Moon's thin atmosphere but also rewrites our understanding of how rocky planets lose material to space, with major implications for upcoming missions to the Moon and Mercury.

Sometimes serendipity happens in science. Whether it’s an apple falling from a tree or a melting chocolate bar, some of the world’s greatest discoveries come from happy accidents, even if their stories may be apocryphal. According to a new paper on arXiv, there’s a new story to add to the archives of serendipitous scientific discoveries - Rubin happened to make observations of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS before its official discovery, while the telescope was still in its Science Validation survey, marking the earliest, high resolution images we will likely get of the comet at that time.

Astronomers have discovered a companion star in an incredibly tight orbit around Betelgeuse using the NASA and U.S. National Science Foundation-funded ‘Alopeke' instrument on Gemini North, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the NSF and operated by NSF NOIRLab. This discovery answers the longstanding mystery of the star’s varying brightness and provides insight into the physical mechanisms behind other variable red supergiants.