Lots of urban areas will be either in or adjacent to the path of totality for the eclipse on April 8. Experts advise getting into this path, as even a 99% partial eclipse is nothing like a total one.
Voyager 1 has been traveling through space since 1977, and some scientists hoped it could keep sending back science data for 50 years. But a serious glitch has put that milestone in jeopardy.
The Voyager 1 space probe is the farthest human-made object in space. It launched in 1977 with a golden record on board that carried assorted sounds of our home planet: greetings in many different languages, dogs barking, and the sound of two people kissing, to name but a few examples. The idea with this record was that someday, Voyager 1 might be our emissary to alien life – an audible time capsule of Earth's beings. Since its launch, it also managed to complete missions to Jupiter and Saturn. In 2012, it crossed into interstellar space.
But a few months ago, the probe encountered a problem. "It's an elderly spacecraft," says NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce, "and it had some kind of electronic stroke." Greenfieldboyce talks to Short Wave Host Regina G. Barber about the precarious status of Voyager 1 – the glitch threatening its mission, and the increasingly risky measures NASA is taking to try and restore it.
What interstellar adventure should we cover next? Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.
A satellite with a climate solutions mission blasted off on a SpaceX rocket Monday. It's on a mission to detect planet-heating methane pollution from the oil and gas sector.
Three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut will spend about six months on the International Space Station - conducting experiments and research. They'll relieve four people of the Crew-7 mission.
It's a question that's been posed again and again. Carl Sagan posed it in the 1970s as a NASA mission scientist as the agency prepared to send its twin Viking landers to Mars.
And nearly 50 years after the first of two landers touched down on Mars, we're no closer to an answer as to whether there's life — out there.
Scientists haven't stopped looking. In fact, they've expanded their gaze to places like Saturn's largest moon, Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa.
The search for life beyond planet earth continues to captivate. And NASA has upcoming missions to both moons. Could we be closer to answering that question Carl Sagan asked some 50 years ago?
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The sci-fi film Dune: Part Two is out in theaters now. The movie takes place on the harsh desert planet, Arrakis, where water is scarce and giant, killer sandworms lurk just beneath the surface. But what do planetary scientists and biologists think about the science of these worms, Arrakis and our other favorite sci-fi planets?
Today on the show, Regina G. Barber talks to biologist (and Star Trek consultant!) Mohamed Noor and planetary scientist Michael Wong about Dune, habitable planets and how to make fantasy seem more realistic.
Want more of the science behind your favorite fictional worlds? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
Navy Capt. Victor Glover, who spent nearly six months aboard the International Space Station, will be among four astronauts to venture back to the moon for the first time since 1972.
Intuitive Machines, the company that built and flew the spacecraft, said it will continue to collect data until sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels, expected to happen Tuesday morning.
Odysseus — the first U.S. lander in over 50 years — tipped over at touchdown and ended up on its side near the moon's south pole, hampering communications, Intuitive Machines officials said Friday.
An Austin, Texas-to-Detroit flight along April's path of totality is sold out. There are other flights with a view, though your best bet may actually be here on Earth, says one astrophysicist.
NASA is crashing the ISS into the ocean at the end of 2030. The agency is collaborating with private companies to build its replacement. So what could the space stations of the near future look like?
The one-in-a-billion chance it could have hit somebody on the head didn't become a reality, as the European satellite reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean between Alaska and Hawaii.
The agency is accepting applicants for the second cohort of its Mars simulator mission. Participants will live and work from a 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot facility at NASA's Houston space center.
