On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission made history by intentionally colliding with the asteroid Dimorphos, significantly altering both its orbital period and physical shape. This is the first time humanity has purposefully altered the motion of a celestial object, as well as the first full-scale demonstration of asteroid deflection technology.
The International Space Station’s (ISS) largest-ever discarded object, a hefty equipment pallet weighing 2.9 tons, is anticipated to make an uncontrolled descent back to Earth between March 8 and 9, 2024. Launched into space for a critical ISS power system upgrade, this pallet, loaded with nine old station batteries, will not fully disintegrate upon reentry, with predictions indicating about half a ton of debris could survive the descent and impact the planet’s surface.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth observation satellite, ERS-2, is scheduled for atmospheric reentry on February 21, 2024. Launched in April 1995, ERS-2 has been instrumental in monitoring Earth’s surface and natural disasters for nearly 30 years.
The XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission), a Japan-led observatory with collaboration from NASA and ESA, has released its first look at the detailed X-ray universe, showcasing unprecedented data collection capabilities ahead of its full science operations later this year.
Recent research led by Professor Patrick Irwin from the University of Oxford has unveiled that Neptune and Uranus, traditionally thought to be distinctly blue and green respectively, are in fact much closer in color – both portraying shades of greenish blue.
The Space Launch System (SLS) mega rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard lifted off at 06:47 UTC (01:47 EST) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, U.S. on November 16, 2022.
A newly-discovered asteroid designated 2022 UQ1 turned out to be space junk.
Data gathered by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) investigative team over the last two weeks suggest that the spacecraft’s kinetic encounter with its target asteroid, Dimorphos, successfully altered the asteroid’s orbit.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration, successfully struck its asteroid target at 23:14 UTC on September 26, 2022, after 10 months of flying through space.
A massive booster from Chinese Long March 5B rocket, launched on July 24, 2022, is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere over the weekend, with some of its pieces surviving the descent and hitting the surface. The rocket delivered the Wentian experiment module to China’s Tiangong Space Station.
