A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade to 2040. The mission would be the first to try to return rock samples from Mars to Earth so scientists can analyze them for signs of past life.NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference on April 15, 2024, that the mission as currently conceived is too...
NASA officials have announced that they have no plan to return to Earth samples of Martian rocks that could contain signs of life.The agency's Perseverance rover has been exploring the surface of the Red Planet for more than three years, collecting rock and soil samples to provide evidence of life. By all accounts, Perseverance was successful in its mission to collect samples – but bringing those samples home is a different story. A recent report showed that NASA's original plan to return the...
Perseverance has collected samples for three years, looking for evidence of life. But there is not yet a plan in the works for bringing these samples back to Earth. NASA officials said the current sample return plan will be too slow and too costly. READ MORE:
NASA created a map showing the historic path of its Mars Ingenuity helicopter, which flew over 70 times before crashing into the Martian desert.
The most surprising revelation from NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover — that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater — has scientists scratching their heads. Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth. But scientists haven’t found convincing signs of current or ancient life on Mars, and thus didn’t expect to find methane
We have several launches coming up this week, but the most notable will be the Chang'e mission taking off to collect lunar samples and return them to Earth. Read on to learn more about the mission.
For the last five months, it seemed very possible that a 46-year-old conversation had finally reached its end. Since its launch from Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 5, 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has diligently sent regular updates to Earth on the health of its systems and data collected from its onboard instruments. But in November, the craft went quiet. Voyager 1 is now some 15 billion miles away from Earth. Somewhere in the cold interstellar space between our sun and the closest stars,...
The most surprising revelation from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover—that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater—has scientists scratching their heads.
A mutated bacteria was discovered on board the International Space Station that could affect the health of astronauts during their stay. E. bugandensis has been linked to sepsis in infants.
Dr. Lesley Ott, NASA Climate Scientist, talks about Earth Day and ways you can celebrate while helping the planet, and how climatology works with meteorology.
For the first time since November, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).