Space

Flight controllers and station crew have isolated an air leak to the Russian-built Zvezda Service Module of the ISS, but have yet to pinpoint the breach ahead of the arrival of an uncrewed cargo spacecraft later this week.

When NASA’s newest rover touches down on Mars, it will carry with it a set of mirrors that will serve as targets for future laser-wielding spacecraft. The laser-bouncing tech is similar to that used in the Apollo era, to characterize the Moon.

ESA's Mars Express has found evidence of more liquid water beneath the ice cap in the south polar region of Mars. Based on data from the MARSIS radar instrument, researchers found three subsurface ponds with the largest measuring 20 x 30 km (12 x 19 mi).

The Cheops exoplanet mission has revealed one of the hottest, most extreme planets orbiting another star. Located 322 light years away in the constellation of Libra, WASP-189 b is an ultra-hot Jupiter with a temperature so high that iron turns to gas.

Radiation is a major danger of space travel, and with human crews heading back to the Moon it’s important to understand the risks. Now we have the clearest data on that to date, thanks to an instrument onboard the Chinese lunar lander Chang’e-4.

Debris orbiting in high Earth orbit is not being tracked closely enough, according to the results of a new survey, and could pose an unexpected threat to important satellites that provide communication, weather observation and navigation services.

The ISS was forced to make an emergency course correction to avoid an unidentified piece of space debris earlier this week, an incident that highlights the dangers posed by the thousands of tonnes of disused satellites and rockets orbiting the Earth.

Last year, NASA awarded a contract to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and its spinoff Astrobotic to build an autonomous Moon rover as a technology demonstrator and water prospector. The rover has now completed its preliminary design review.

A new “Sonification” project from NASA's Chandra X-ray Center has translated visual data into sound, letting us hear the center of the Milky Way, the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, and the Pillars of Creation nebula.

NRAO has announced a new addition to NASA’s upcoming moon-shot Artemis program. From the silent skies on the far side of the Moon, the DAPPER spacecraft will listen out for radio signals from the cosmic “Dark Ages,” before the first stars fired up.

NASA has released an updated outline of its Artemis program to return US astronauts to the Moon and set up a permanent human presence there, beginning with the landing of the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024.

Astronomers have discovered a new exoplanet that belongs in a brand new class – an “ultrahot Neptune.” Known as LTT 9779b, the planet orbits extremely close to its star, and raises questions about how such a system came to be.