Space Missions to Watch in 2026: A new era of cosmic exploration unfolds with advanced telescopes and ambitious missions. NASA's Roman Telescope and China's Xuntian will redefine our view of the universe, while Europe's PLATO seeks habitable worlds. NASA's Artemis II will send astronauts around the Moon, complemented by missions probing Mars and the Moon. The joint SMILE Mission focuses on protecting Earth from solar phenomena.
China's FAST telescope—the largest on Earth—has scoured the archives to find 19 pulsars missed by previous searches, including rare "transient" ghosts.
Pulsars (spinning neutron stars) are lighthouses of the cosmos. Most are found near the Galactic Plane, where stars are dense.
In space, fire doesn't rise. It forms a ghostly sphere that is harder to detect and harder to kill. New research aims to tame flames for the journey to Mars.
On Earth, hot air is lighter than cold air. It rises, pulling fresh oxygen in from below. This convection gives fire its familiar teardrop shape and yellow color (soot).
Jupiter's outermost moon is a battered, icy archive of the early solar system. New thermal imaging is finally peeling back its scarred surface to reveal what lies beneath.
Using the ALMA telescope, researchers analyzed thermal data to peer into the top few centimeters of Callisto's surface (regolith).
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