A Road Trip with Commander Chris

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HKU astrobiologist joins national effort to map out China’s Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission July 11, 2025
China's Tianwen-3 is poised to be the first sample-return mission to Mars. The science team now includes a group of astrobiologists from Hong Kong University (HKU), led by Professor Yiliang Li. In a recent paper, the team advised the China National Space Agency (CNSA) on landing site selection and how the first samples from Mars […]
Lunar Astronauts Could Eat "Moon Rice" July 11, 2025
If we can learn to grow our own food in space, it'll make surviving off Earth less challenging. While plants do grow in space, some genetic improvements are in order. Researchers have unveiled "Moon rice," a genetically manipulated strain of rice that grows much shorter than even dwarf varieties of rice and could be grown […]
Deflecting Asteroids Isn't Simple According to New Data from DART July 11, 2025
Sometimes a mission can be too successful. When NASA's DART spacecraft slammed into Dimorphos in 2022 as part of an asteroid redirection test, it altered the asteroids orbit, proving that kinetic impactors can be used to defend Earth from hazardous objects. Unfortunately, the impact also created a shower of boulders that also gave Dimorphos an […]
Little Red Dots Lead To Big Discoveries July 11, 2025
Names are a strange thing in astronomy. Sometimes scientists come up with grandiose, simple name, like the Extremely Large Telescope. Other times, they come up with unique sounding names, like quasars. And sometimes they come up with names that, while descriptive in some sense, are completely misleading in others. That is the case for Little […]
UK is Considering a Mission to Venus to Search for Life July 11, 2025
Is there life on Venus? The controversial detection of phosphine and ammonia hints that bacterial life could be surviving in the planet's milder upper atmosphere. But to confirm its existence, we'll need to measure the atmosphere directly. A new mission concept was recently unveiled called the Venus Explorer for Reduced Vapours in the Environment (VERVE). […]