Original reports, explanations and news from their publishers.
Artemis IV’s planned stay near the lunar South Pole needs lighting predictions for a particular place and time. Start with the change visible from Earth: the Moon’s phases show different portions of a sunlit globe, even as nearly the same face remains turned towards us.
5 min read
NASA
Blue Ghost Mission 2 is planned to carry a lander to the lunar far side alongside communications infrastructure. ESA’s Lunar Pathfinder is planned to travel with the mission in 2027. The destination combines a different geological landscape with a practical difficulty: the Moon itself blocks a direct radio path to Earth.
4 min read
NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Artemis IV is planned to send two astronauts to the lunar South Pole region in early 2028. The region is attractive because it preserves scientific records and evidence of volatiles. Its low Sun, deep shadows and uneven terrain also make landing and working there unusually demanding.
3 min read
NASA/KARI/ASU
Sample collection is part of Artemis IV’s planned surface work. The value of a returned rock depends on more than its mass: scientists need its location, its surroundings and the measurements that connect a fragment to the Moon’s history. Apollo’s fieldwork shows why those records matter.
3 min read
NASA
Artemis IV’s planned surface expedition depends on a human landing system descending from lunar orbit and returning the crew afterward. Robotic landers have demonstrated parts of that task at a smaller scale. Their results show why reaching lunar orbit, touching the ground and completing surface science are three different milestones.
3 min read
NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Artemis IV’s planned surface crew will work hundreds of thousands of kilometres from Earth. A radio signal can cross that distance in a little over a second, yet direct contact still depends on where the spacecraft and terrain are. Start by putting both worlds on the same physical scale.
3 min read
NASA
Curiosity landed in Gale Crater to investigate whether its ancient environments could have supported microbial life. The rover’s route from the crater floor up Mount Sharp connects that question to specific rocks: their layers, chemistry and relationships to the terrain around them.
3 min read
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Lucy’s route from main-belt encounters toward the Jupiter Trojans makes an important distinction visible: the asteroid belt and the Trojan populations are different orbital environments. The belt is a broad collection of bodies between Mars and Jupiter, not a dense wall of tumbling rocks.
3 min read
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
OSIRIS-REx returned material from Bennu to Earth in 2023. The scientific advantage was access: researchers could apply several laboratory techniques to carefully documented grains instead of relying only on instruments carried by the spacecraft.
3 min read
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
Rosetta followed comet 67P through a changing part of its orbit instead of taking only a brief flyby snapshot. That long view connected the solid nucleus, local activity and the expanding gas and dust around it.
3 min read
ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
New Horizons investigated Pluto in 2015 and Arrokoth in 2019. Those encounters explored very different objects beyond Neptune. They also help separate a close-up view of one body from the larger orbital populations to which outer Solar System objects belong.
3 min read
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Europa Clipper is travelling towards Jupiter to investigate whether Europa has environments that could support life. The target lies largely beneath ice. Its investigation starts with a magnetic response that Galileo measured and a fractured surface that cameras can see.
4 min read
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
