A Road Trip with Commander Chris

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Celebrate the JWST's Third Anniversary With This Stunning Image July 12, 2025
It's crazy to think that the JWST has already been working for three years. It's repeatedly impressed us not only with its powerful science observations, but also with stunning images that capture our interest even if we didn't know what we were seeing. Now, the telescope is celebrating its third anniversary with a glorious image […]
A Small Satellite Could See a Perfect Solar Eclipse Every Month July 12, 2025
Why wait for rare solar eclipses? ESA's Proba mission can now create an artificial solar eclipse once a day. Now, a UK-led mission could do the same trick, but using the Moon's shadow to provide a 48-minute total eclipse once every lunar orbit (29.6 days). Named the Moon-Enabled Sun Occultation Mission (MESOM), the small spacecraft […]
The Roman Space Telescope is Coming Together as Engineers Install its Solar Panels July 12, 2025
On June 14 and 16, technicians installed solar panels onto NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, one of the final steps in assembling the observatory. Collectively called the Solar Array Sun Shield, these panels will power and shade the observatory, enabling all the mission’s observations and helping keep the instruments cool. “At this point, the […]
Tracking Molecules In the Interstellar Medium July 12, 2025
Stars don’t form out of nothing, but tracking the gas and dust that do eventually form stars is hard. They float around the galaxy at almost absolute zero, emitting essentially no light, and generally making life difficult for astronomers. But, part of how they make life difficult is actually the key to studying them - […]
Ancient Moon Rock Reveals Missing Chapter in Lunar History July 12, 2025
A 2.35 billion year old rock that fell from the sky in Africa is rewriting our understanding of the Moon's past. This ancient meteorite, blasted off the lunar surface has revealed that our closest neighbor remained volcanically active for nearly a billion years longer than scientists previously knew. With its unique chemical fingerprint pointing to […]