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Light-powered propulsion expands space exploration possibilities

Reaching the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, would take hundreds of thousands of years using current rocket propulsion technology. Researchers in the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University have demonstrated a new...

Astronomers reveal spectacular birthplace of cosmic buckyballs

Fifteen years after Western astronomers first discovered “buckyballs” in space (soccer ball-shaped molecules that resemble a hollow sphere), they’re back with stunning images and rich data generated using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—the...

Ames’s contributions to Artemis II

NASA successfully sent four astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, setting the stage for future lunar landing missions. As the agency continues to push the bounds of space exploration, NASA’s Ames Research Center in...

Astronomers find an exo-Jupiter, and it seems to have clouds

A team of astronomers led by Elisabeth Matthews at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) has made a discovery that highlights the limits of most current models of exoplanet atmospheres: water-ice clouds on a distant Jupiter-like exoplanet called Epsilon Indi...