Space Missions News

October 12, 2025

Top Headlines

The Moon’s South Pole Hides a 4-billion-year-old Secret

Oct. 12, 2025 — A colossal northern asteroid impact billions of years ago likely shaped the Moon’s south polar region and explains its uneven terrain. Researchers found that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed from a glancing northern strike, revealing deep ...

An Interstellar Visitor Lights Up the Red Planet’s Sky

Oct. 12, 2025 — ESA’s Mars orbiters have observed comet 3I/ATLAS, only the third interstellar comet ever discovered. The faint, distant object revealed a glowing coma as it was heated by the Sun. Researchers are still studying the data to understand its makeup ...

Scientists Stunned by Wild Martian Dust Devils Racing at Hurricane Speeds

Oct. 9, 2025 — Mars may look calm, but new research reveals it’s a world of fierce winds and swirling dust devils racing at hurricane-like speeds. Using deep learning on thousands of satellite images from European orbiters, scientists have discovered that ...

ESA’s Chilling New “Super Antenna” in Australia Reaches Spacecraft Billions of Miles Away

Oct. 6, 2025 — ESA has inaugurated a powerful new 35-meter deep space antenna at its New Norcia site in Western Australia, marking a major boost to Europe’s ability to communicate with spacecraft exploring the ...

The Moon Could Finally Reveal Dark Matter

Sep. 18, 2025 — Faint hydrogen signals from the cosmic Dark Ages may soon help determine the mass of dark matter particles. Simulations suggest future Moon-based observatories could distinguish between warm and cold dark matter, providing long-sought answers about ...

A Record-breaking Antenna Just Deployed in Space. Here’s What It Will See

Aug. 18, 2025 — NASA and ISRO s NISAR satellite has just reached a major milestone: the successful deployment of its enormous 39-foot antenna reflector in orbit. Folded up like an umbrella during launch, the reflector is now fully extended and ready to support ...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Just Learned How to Multitask

Aug. 14, 2025 — Thirteen years after landing on Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover is running smarter and more efficiently than ever. With new autonomy and multitasking capabilities, it’s maximizing the output from its long-lasting nuclear power source while ...

Trapped by Moon Dust: The Physics Error That Fooled NASA for Years

July 27, 2025 — Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison uncovered a critical flaw in how lunar and Martian rovers are tested on Earth. Simulations revealed that test results have been misleading for decades because researchers only adjusted rover weight to ...

Scientists Discover New Evidence of Intermediate-mass Black Holes

May 30, 2025 — A series of studies sheds light on the origins and characteristics of intermediate-mass black ...

Why Are Some Rocks on the Moon Highly Magnetic?

May 23, 2025 — Scientists may have solved the mystery of why the moon shows ancient signs of magnetism although it has no magnetic field today. An impact, such as from a large asteroid, could have generated a cloud of ionized particles that briefly enveloped the ...

Saturn's Moon: Mysterious Wobbling Atmosphere Like a Gyroscope

May 22, 2025 — The puzzling behavior of Titan's atmosphere has been revealed. The team has shown that the thick, hazy atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon doesn't spin in line with its surface, but instead wobbles like a gyroscope, shifting with the ...

Streaked Slopes on Mars Probably Not Signs of Water Flow, Study Finds

May 19, 2025 — Researchers analyzed a global database of 500,000 strange streaks that occur on steep Martian slopes, concluding that they're most likely caused by dry processes rather than liquid ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:34am EDT

October’s Sky Comes Alive With a Supermoon and Shooting Stars

Oct. 6, 2025 — October’s night sky is set to dazzle, featuring a radiant supermoon, the fiery Draconid meteor shower, and the sparkling Orionids. As the full moon reaches its largest and brightest on October 6, ...

The Moon’s Far Side Is Hiding a Chilling Secret

Oct. 3, 2025 — New lunar samples from the far side reveal it formed from cooler magma than the near side, confirming the Moon’s interior is not uniform. Researchers suggest fewer heat-producing elements on the ...

Saturn’s Icy Moon Enceladus Just Revealed Stunning New Clues to Life

Oct. 2, 2025 — Fresh analysis of Cassini data has revealed new complex organic molecules inside ice grains spewing from Enceladus. These discoveries strengthen the case that the moon’s underground ocean hosts ...

Scientists Just Solved Uranus’ Coldest Mystery

Oct. 1, 2025 — For decades, Uranus baffled scientists because it seemed to have no internal heat. Now, new computer modeling shows the planet actually emits more energy than it receives from the Sun. This subtle ...

Scientists Just Found the Strongest Signs of Life on Mars Yet

Oct. 1, 2025 — Perseverance rover data shows Jezero Crater once held a calm lake, leaving behind mudstones rich in organic-linked minerals. The presence of iron-phosphate and iron-sulfide nodules suggests processes ...

10 People Who Beat 8,000 Others to Become NASA Astronaut Candidates

Sep. 23, 2025 — NASA has chosen 10 new astronaut candidates who will train for missions to the Moon and Mars. Their selection represents a powerful blend of talent and ambition, fueling humanity’s next great leaps ...

Could These Strange Rocks Be the First True Evidence of Life on Mars?

Sep. 21, 2025 — In Jezero Crater’s Bright Angel formation, Perseverance has found rocks rich in organic molecules and minerals linked to microbial metabolism. Their arrangement hints at redox reactions that ...

NASA Just Confirmed Its 6,000th Alien World. Some Are Truly Bizarre

Sep. 21, 2025 — NASA has confirmed 6,000 exoplanets, marking a major milestone in humanity’s quest to understand other worlds. From gas giants hugging their stars to planets covered in lava or clouds of gemstones, ...

Strange ‘leopard Spots’ in a Mars Rock Could Be the Strongest Hint of Life Yet

Sep. 16, 2025 — NASA’s Perseverance rover has delivered its most compelling clue yet in the search for life on Mars. A rock sample called “Sapphire Canyon,” ...

NASA's Perseverance Rover Finds Clues to Ancient Mars Chemistry and Possible Life

Sep. 12, 2025 — Mars’ Jezero Crater holds signs of ancient water and strange mineral reactions, some linked with organic compounds. With Perseverance’s samples ...

NASA’s Celestial “Accident” Unlocks Secrets of Jupiter and Saturn

Sep. 10, 2025 — Astronomers studying an oddball brown dwarf called “The Accident” have finally spotted silane, a long-predicted silicon molecule missing from Jupiter and Saturn’s skies. Its ancient, ...

Enceladus’s Plumes May Be Fooling Us About Life

Sep. 9, 2025 — Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus has long fascinated scientists with its spectacular water plumes, which NASA’s Cassini spacecraft once revealed to contain organic molecules. Many hoped these ...

The Sun’s Hidden Particle Engines Finally Exposed

Sep. 3, 2025 — Solar Orbiter has identified the Sun’s dual “engines” for superfast electrons: explosive flares and sweeping coronal mass ejections. By catching over 300 events close to their origin, the ...

Scientists Uncover Hidden Shards of Mars’ Violent Birth, Frozen for Billions of Years

Aug. 31, 2025 — Mars isn’t the neatly layered world we once imagined — its mantle is filled with ancient, jagged fragments left over from colossal impacts billions of years ago. Seismic data from NASA’s ...

Butterfly Nebula Reveals Sparkling Gems, Fiery Dust, and the Ingredients of Life

Aug. 28, 2025 — James Webb has revealed that the Butterfly Nebula hides a complex mix of gemstone-like crystals, fiery dust, and unexpected carbon molecules. The discovery may rewrite how we understand the chemistry ...

Planet Birth Photographed for the First Time

Sep. 8, 2025 — Astronomers have directly spotted a rare young planet, WISPIT 2b, still forming within the gap of a dusty ringed disk around a star like our sun—something long theorized but never observed until ...

Are We Accidentally Broadcasting Our Location to Alien Civilizations?

Aug. 23, 2025 — Earth may already be broadcasting its presence to alien civilizations without realizing it. A new study shows that our deep-space transmissions, especially those aimed at Mars and interplanetary ...

Voyager Missed It, but James Webb Just Found Uranus’ Hidden Moon

Aug. 21, 2025 — Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a tiny new moon orbiting Uranus, increasing the planet’s moon tally to 29. The object, only about six miles wide, escaped Voyager ...

After 70 Years, the Sun’s Explosive Mystery Is Finally Solved

Aug. 20, 2025 — NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has directly observed magnetic reconnection in the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time, confirming decades-old theories about solar explosions. This discovery bridges ...

How NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer Was Lost Before Reaching the Moon

Aug. 11, 2025 — NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer, a mission designed to create high-resolution maps of water on the Moon, ended after losing contact with the spacecraft just one day after its February 26 launch. Despite ...

Radar That Could Find Life on Europa Just Nailed Its First Big Test

Aug. 3, 2025 — NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft just aced a key radar test while flying past Mars, proving its ability to detect structures beneath planetary surfaces—something that couldn’t be tested on ...

Twice a Day, Mars May Briefly Host Water That Could Support Life

Aug. 13, 2025 — Mars, once thought too cold and dry for liquid water, may briefly host salty brines twice a day during certain seasons. These fleeting bursts wouldn’t be enough to sustain humans, but they could ...

NASA’s Artemis Lunar Terrain Vehicle Will Search for Lunar Ice and Subsurface Structures

July 11, 2025 — NASA is gearing up for an exciting chapter in lunar exploration by sending a trio of high-tech instruments to the Moon. Two of the devices will be attached to a new lunar rover capable of carrying ...

NASA Probe Flies Into the Sun and Captures the Origins of Solar Storms

July 11, 2025 — In its closest-ever dive into the Sun’s atmosphere, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has returned stunning new images and data that bring scientists closer to solving one of the Sun’s biggest ...

Chang’e-6 Unearths Volcanic and Magnetic Mysteries on the Moon’s Farside

July 11, 2025 — China's Chang’e-6 mission has delivered the first-ever samples from the Moon’s far side, shedding light on one of planetary science’s greatest mysteries: why the near and far sides are so ...

2.35-Billion-Year-Old Moon Rock Found in Africa Rewrites Lunar History

July 13, 2025 — A 2.35-billion-year-old Moon rock that fell to Earth in Africa is rewriting what we know about lunar volcanism. This rare meteorite, studied by UK scientists and unveiled at a major geochemistry ...

Earth’s Weather Satellites Just Spent 10 Years Watching Venus — Here’s What They Found

July 2, 2025 — Japan’s Himawari weather satellites, designed to watch Earth, have quietly delivered a decade of infrared snapshots of Venus. By stitching 437 images together, scientists tracked daily thermal ...

NASA Finds Titan’s Alien Lakes May Be Creating Primitive Cells

Sep. 1, 2025 — Saturn’s moon Titan may be more alive with possibilities than we thought. New NASA research suggests that in Titan’s freezing methane and ethane lakes, simple molecules could naturally arrange ...

Tiny Orange Beads Found by Apollo Astronauts Reveal Moon’s Explosive Past

June 16, 2025 — When Apollo astronauts stumbled across shimmering orange beads on the moon, they had no idea they were gazing at ancient relics of violent volcanic activity. These glass spheres, tiny yet ...

Magnetic Mayhem at the Sun’s Poles: First Images Reveal a Fiery Mystery

June 16, 2025 — For the first time in history, we re seeing the Sun from an angle no one ever has: from above and below its poles. Thanks to the European Space Agency s Solar Orbiter and its tilted orbit, scientists ...