Spacecraft sometimes produce a form of electrical self-interference as they zip through plasmas in space—a previously unreported effect that may be lurking in old data sets.
spacecraft
Posted inNews
Shedding Light on the Darkest Regions of the Moon
An international team of researchers is analyzing boulder tracks to learn more about some of the most elusive regions on the Moon.
Posted inNews
The Ice Giant Spacecraft of Our Dreams
Scientists imagined some innovative technologies that could enhance a future mission to Uranus or Neptune.
Posted inNews
Location, Location, Location: The How-to’s of Asteroid Sampling
Finding the right spot to grab a sample of Bennu was more of a challenge than the OSIRIS-REx team had originally planned.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Explaining the Missing Energy in Mars’s Electrons
Electrons energized and trapped at Mars were thought to lose energy inside the planet’s magnetosheath, but new research suggests a different explanation of spacecraft data.
Posted inNews
Voyager 2’s Interstellar Arrival Was Kind of Familiar. That’s Surprising
The spacecraft crossed the solar system’s edge at a different spot and in a different solar season than Voyager 1. Nevertheless, the border looked much the same in both spots.
Posted inNews
Virtual Super Instrument Enhances Solar Spacecraft
The same algorithms that help control self-driving cars and speech-to-text functionality have helped build a virtual instrument to study the Sun.
Posted inNews
What Inflates the Solar Bubble? Voyagers Count What’s Missing
The first in situ measurement of the pressure at the edge of the solar system reveals that there’s still a lot we don’t know about what sets the size of the heliosphere.
Posted inFeatures
The Coming Surge of Rocket Emissions
With the space industry’s rapid growth, rocket exhaust will increasingly accumulate in the atmosphere. How this accumulation might affect the planet is unknown—because we’re not taking it seriously.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Sampling the Space Between the Stars
Data from the Cassini and Voyager spacecraft reveal new information about the Sun’s magnetic bubble.