On Earth, extreme solar activity often appears as beautiful, benign auroras. But venturing beyond the safety of the Earth’s magnetic field, one faces the full brunt of a temperamental star that can suddenly erupt with flares and coronal mass ejections.

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On April 10, Artemis II—humanity’s first mission to the moon in more than half a century—will draw to a close when the Orion capsule carrying four crew members detaches from its service module.

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The closest planet to our sun, Mercury, experiences extreme temperature variations. Since the planet has no atmosphere to speak of, it is in a constant cycle where one side is extremely hot and the other extremely cold. On the sun-facing side, temperatures reach a scorching 427°C (800°F), enough to melt tin and lead, and the […]

Twin control rooms at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are actively supporting real-time mission operations in lunar orbit as part of the agency’s Artemis II mission, helping ensure astronaut safety and mission success as the crew prepares to return to Earth Friday, April 10.

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They took thousands of photographs and documented copious observations on their voyage around the moon, but as they sped closer to home the Artemis astronauts said Wednesday they have barely started processing the extraordinary experience they shared.

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Lunar love knows no bounds. Now hurtling home from the moon, the Artemis II astronauts took a poignant page from Apollo 8 earlier this week, proposing deeply personal names for a pair of lunar craters.

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After a successful trip around the moon, everything has been going smoothly on the Orion spacecraft’s journey back to Earth—except for the $23 million toilet, which has gotten clogged.

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Fast solar winds originating from the sun can have direct impacts on Earth—disrupting systems like GPS, aviation, electrical grids, and satellite and radio communications. A new paper by New Mexico State University astronomy graduate student Khagendra Katuwal examines the connection between coronal holes and solar wind streams, helping improve our understanding of how the sun’s […]