In about five years’ time, a potentially hazardous asteroid will swing by Earth at an eerily close distance of less than 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers). During this rare encounter, Apophis will be ten times closer to Earth than the Moon and scientists want to take full advantage of its visit.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured new images of Jupiter’s moon Io during its latest flyby, coming within an eerily close distance of the most volcanically active world in the solar system for a second time in less than two months. The close encounter also shows what appears to be a pair of plumes erupting from the…
NASA’s curious Jupiter probe is getting chummier with the planet’s most erratic moon, Io. The Juno spacecraft will carry out the closest encounter any mission has had with the volcanic moon in over 20 years, collecting valuable clues about its mysterious activity.
As NASA’s Lucy spacecraft zoomed past its first asteroid on Wednesday, its mission scientists made a surprising discovery of a bonus space rock.
After traveling millions of miles over the past two years, the Lucy spacecraft has almost reached its first destination. NASA’s asteroid probe will briefly rendezvous with Dinkinesh in the main asteroid belt on Wednesday to prepare for its future visits of Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.
After years of capturing the massive world of Jupiter, the Juno spacecraft has recently turned its attention to its Jovian moons. During a close flyby of Jupiter’s spookiest moon, Juno imaged the charred surface of a volcanic world caught in a haunting gravitational tug.
The Lucy spacecraft is on a 12-year journey to visit eight different asteroids, and it’s almost caught up with the first space rock on its checklist.
To all the space probes we’ve loved before: sorry! You fell into Saturn, drifted into deep space, suffocated in Martian dust—all for the greater good of science. Today, we’re memorializing the space explorers that met dramatic endings far, far from Earth.
A famous NASA spacecraft will continue exploring the outer reaches of the solar system thanks to an extended lifeline. This decision overturns NASA’s earlier proposal to change the mission’s course and transfer it to a different division.
The Lucy spacecraft is getting closer to its first asteroid encounter, a small, stony celestial body that was recently added to the mission’s itinerary.
