Space Probes News

February 28, 2026

Top Headlines

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Completes the First AI-planned Drive on Mars

Feb. 2, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover has just made history by driving across Mars using routes planned by artificial intelligence instead of human operators. A vision-capable AI analyzed the same images and terrain data normally used by rover planners, ...

Earth’s Toughest Microbes Could Help Humans Live on Mars

Jan. 6, 2026 Mars looks familiar from afar, but surviving there means creating a protective oasis in a hostile world. Instead of shipping construction materials from Earth, researchers are exploring how to use Martian soil as the raw ingredient. Two tough ...

Scientists Are Turning Earth Into a Giant Detector for Hidden Forces Shaping Our Universe

Dec. 6, 2025 SQUIRE aims to detect exotic spin-dependent interactions using quantum sensors deployed in space, where speed and environmental conditions vastly improve sensitivity. Orbiting sensors tap into ...

Space Is Filling with Junk and Scientists Have a Fix

Dec. 3, 2025 Earth’s orbit is getting crowded with broken satellites and leftover rocket parts. Researchers say the solution is to build spacecraft that can be repaired, reused, or recycled instead of abandoned. They also want new tools to collect old debris ...

Japanese Spacecraft Faces a Massive Challenge from a House-size Asteroid

Nov. 21, 2025 New observations show that asteroid 1998 KY26 is a mere 11 meters across and spinning twice as fast as previously thought. The discovery adds complexity to Hayabusa2’s 2031 mission but also heightens scientific interest. The asteroid’s ...

JWST Captures Stunning 3D View of a Planet’s Scorching Atmosphere

Nov. 2, 2025 A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to create the first 3D atmospheric map of an exoplanet. The fiery WASP-18b, a massive “ultra-hot Jupiter,” revealed striking temperature contrasts, including regions so hot they destroy ...

The Universe’s First Radio Waves Could Reveal Dark Matter

Oct. 25, 2025 Researchers propose that hydrogen gas from the early Universe emitted detectable radio waves influenced by dark matter. Studying these signals, especially from the Moon’s radio-quiet environment, could reveal how dark matter clumped together ...

Harvard Astrophysicist Suggests Mysterious Interstellar Object May Be an Alien Probe

Oct. 15, 2025 3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could even be alien-made, drawing comparisons to probes ...

The Sun’s Hidden Poles Could Finally Reveal Its Greatest Secrets

Oct. 14, 2025 High above the Sun’s blazing equator lie its mysterious poles, the birthplace of fast solar winds and the heart of its magnetic heartbeat. For decades, scientists have struggled to see these regions, hidden from Earth’s orbit. With the upcoming ...

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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:35am EST

A Lost Moon May Have Created Titan and Saturn’s Rings

Feb. 27, 2026 Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may have been born in a colossal cosmic crash. New research suggests Titan formed when two older moons slammed together hundreds of millions of years ago—an event so ...

Apollo Rocks Reveal the Moon Had Brief Bursts of Super-Strong Magnetism

Feb. 26, 2026 Scientists at the University of Oxford have finally settled a decades-long mystery about the Moon’s magnetic field — and it turns out both sides were right. By reanalyzing Apollo mission rocks, ...

NASA Study Finds Ancient Life Could Survive 50 Million Years in Martian Ice

Feb. 25, 2026 Mars’ frozen ice caps may be time capsules for ancient life. Lab experiments show that key building blocks of proteins can survive tens of millions of years in pure ice, even under relentless ...

Young Mars Volcano Hides a Powerful Magma Engine Beneath the Surface

Feb. 23, 2026 A Martian volcano once thought to be the result of a single eruption turns out to have a much more complex past. Orbital imaging and mineral data show it developed through multiple eruptive phases, ...

James Webb Space Telescope Captures Strange Magnetic Forces Warping Uranus

Feb. 21, 2026 For the first time, scientists have mapped Uranus’s upper atmosphere in three dimensions, tracking temperatures and charged particles up to 5,000 kilometers above the clouds. Webb’s sharp vision ...

The Moon Is Still Shrinking and It Could Trigger More Moonquakes

Feb. 18, 2026 Researchers have uncovered more than a thousand previously unknown tectonic ridges across the Moon’s dark plains, showing the Moon is still contracting and reshaping itself. These features are ...

Rocky Planet Discovered in Outer Orbit Challenges Planet Formation Theory

Feb. 14, 2026 Astronomers have uncovered a distant planetary system that flips a long-standing rule of planet formation on its head. Around the small red dwarf star LHS 1903, scientists expected to find rocky ...

Asteroid Bennu Reveals a New Pathway to Life’s Chemistry

Feb. 12, 2026 Dust from asteroid Bennu is revealing a surprising origin story for life’s building blocks. New research suggests some amino acids formed in frozen ice exposed to radiation, not warm liquid water ...

Radar Evidence Suggests a Massive Lava Tube Beneath Venus

Feb. 12, 2026 Scientists have uncovered evidence of a massive underground lava tube hidden beneath the surface of Venus, revealing a new layer of the planet’s volcanic history. By reexamining radar data from ...

Astronomers Discover an Earth-Like Planet That May Be Colder Than Mars

Feb. 12, 2026 A newly identified planet candidate, HD 137010 b, looks strikingly Earth-like in size and orbit — but it may be colder than Mars due to its dimmer star. If it has a thick enough atmosphere, though, ...

Astronomers Shocked by How These Giant Exoplanets Formed

Feb. 11, 2026 A distant star system with four super-sized gas giants has revealed a surprise. Thanks to JWST’s powerful vision, astronomers detected sulfur in their atmospheres — a chemical clue that they ...

NASA Scientists Say Meteorites Can’t Explain Mysterious Organic Compounds on Mars

Feb. 12, 2026 Scientists studying a rock sample collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover have uncovered something tantalizing: the largest organic molecules ever detected on Mars. The compounds — decane, undecane, ...

Four Astronauts Enter Quarantine as NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Launch Nears

Feb. 2, 2026 NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 team has entered a carefully controlled two-week quarantine as the countdown begins for their journey to the International Space Station. The four astronauts—representing ...

Earthquake Sensors Can Hear Space Junk Falling to Earth

Jan. 24, 2026 Falling space junk is becoming a real-world hazard, and scientists have found a clever new way to track it using instruments already listening to the Earth itself. By tapping into networks of ...

Spacecraft Captures the "magnetic Avalanche" That Triggers Giant Solar Explosions

Jan. 21, 2026 Solar Orbiter has captured the clearest evidence yet that a solar flare grows through a cascading “magnetic avalanche.” Small, weak magnetic disturbances rapidly multiplied, triggering stronger ...

NASA Is Set to Send Astronauts Around the Moon Again

Jan. 25, 2026 NASA is moving into a new phase of space exploration, with major progress across human spaceflight, science missions, and advanced technology. In just one year, the agency has launched multiple ...

Europa’s Ice May Be Feeding a Hidden Ocean That Could Support Life

Jan. 23, 2026 Europa’s subsurface ocean might be getting fed after all. Scientists found that salty, nutrient-rich surface ice can become heavy enough to break free and sink through Europa’s icy shell, ...

NASA Astronaut Suni Williams Retires After 608 Days in Space and Nine Spacewalks

Jan. 22, 2026 NASA astronaut Suni Williams has retired after 27 years of service and a career defined by endurance, leadership, and firsts in space. She spent 608 days in orbit, completed nine spacewalks, and ...

NASA’s Artemis II Reaches the Launch Pad and the Countdown to the Moon Begins

Jan. 19, 2026 NASA’s Artemis II rocket has reached its launch pad after a painstaking overnight crawl across Kennedy Space Center. Engineers are now preparing for crucial fueling and countdown tests ahead of the ...

NASA Brings Crew-11 Home Early in Rare Medical Evacuation

Jan. 16, 2026 SpaceX Crew-11 splashed down safely in the Pacific after more than five months in orbit aboard the International Space Station. The four astronauts completed over 140 experiments and traveled nearly ...

Jupiter’s Clouds Are Hiding Something Big

Jan. 31, 2026 Jupiter’s swirling storms have concealed its true makeup for centuries, but a new model is finally peeling back the clouds. Researchers found the planet likely holds significantly more oxygen than ...

Chang’e-6 Lunar Samples Reveal a Giant Impact Reshaped the Moon’s Interior

Feb. 8, 2026 A colossal ancient impact may have reshaped the Moon far more deeply than scientists once realized. By analyzing rare lunar rocks brought back by China’s Chang’e-6 mission from the Moon’s ...

Puffy Baby Planets Reveal a Missing Stage of Planet Formation

Jan. 31, 2026 A young star called V1298 Tau is giving astronomers a front-row seat to the birth of the galaxy’s most common planets. Four massive but extremely low-density worlds orbiting the star appear to be ...

A New Study Casts Doubt on Life Beneath Europa’s Ice

Jan. 7, 2026 Europa’s buried ocean has made it one of the most exciting places to search for life beyond Earth. However, new calculations suggest its seafloor may be calm, cold, and largely inactive, with ...

Mars’ Water Mystery May Have a Simple Ice Answer

Feb. 6, 2026 Scientists have found that ancient Martian lakes could have survived for decades despite freezing air temperatures. Using a newly adapted climate model, researchers showed that thin, seasonal ice ...

Spacecraft Capture the Sun Building a Massive Superstorm

Jan. 13, 2026 Scientists have pulled back the curtain on one of the most extreme solar regions seen in decades, tracking it almost nonstop for three months as it unleashed powerful space weather. By combining ...

NASA Just Caught a Rare Glimpse of an Interstellar Comet

Dec. 20, 2025 An instrument aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft captured rare ultraviolet observations of an interstellar comet while Earth-based telescopes were blinded by the Sun. The spacecraft’s unique ...

What Scientists Found Inside Titan Was Not What Anyone Expected

Dec. 20, 2025 For years, scientists thought Saturn’s moon Titan hid a global ocean beneath its frozen surface. A new look at Cassini data now suggests something very different: a thick, slushy interior with ...

New Orbital Clue Reveals How Hot Jupiters Really Formed

Dec. 15, 2025 Hot Jupiters were once cosmic oddities, but unraveling how they moved so close to their stars has remained a stubborn mystery. Scientists have long debated whether these giants were violently flung ...

Earth Has Been Feeding the Moon for Billions of Years

Jan. 5, 2026 Tiny bits of Earth’s atmosphere have been drifting to the moon for billions of years, guided by Earth’s magnetic field. Rather than blocking particles, the magnetic field can funnel them along ...