The Full Moon has now passed, meaning with each night visibility will get smaller. This will occur until we reach the New Moon. This phase is part of the lunar cycle, a roughly 29.5-day journey the Moon makes around Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, June 1, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 97% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

So, what can you see? Without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Copernicus Crater, and the Mare Tranquillitatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Clavius Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Alps Mountains. Finally, with a telescope will help you see the Fra Mauro Highlands and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

It's the Full Moon tonight, and the second this month. This means it is a monthly Blue Moon, which occurs roughly every two or three years.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 31, the Moon phase is Full Moon. Tonight, 100% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mare Vaporum, Copernicus Crater, and the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Grimaldi Basin, Posidonus Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. Finally, if you really want to see more, a telescope will help you see the Apollo 14 landing spot, the Linne Crater, and the Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

May is double the fun for Full Moon and space fans because we’re getting two in one month. The first took place on May 1 and the second will be on May 31. This phenomenon is called a Blue Moon. And no, that doesn’t mean it’ll actually turn the color blue, it’s just a somewhat rare occurrence. You might say, “once in a blue moon”...

What is a Blue Moon?

According to NASA, a Blue Moon is when a full moon shows up twice within the same calendar month. The lunar cycle (the process of the Moon orbiting the Earth) lasts about 29 and a half days, which is slightly shorter than most months. This means that every so often the timing lines up like it does in May, with a full moon right at the start of the month and another at the end. It’s not especially common, only happening roughly every couple of years. This is a monthly Blue Moon.

There are also seasonal Blue Moons. These occur when four full moons fall all within one season, instead of three which is what usually happens.

When is the Blue Moon in 2026?

The Blue Moon in 2026 will occur on May 31. According to Time and Date, it will peak around 4:45 a.m. ET.

How often does a Blue Moon occur?

Blue Moons are fairly uncommon, as the saying goes. NASA says they occur roughly every two or three years.

When is the next Blue Moon?

Royal Museums Greenwich tells us that the next Blue Moon will be May 20, 2027. This will be a seasonal Blue Moon.

Tomorrow is the Full Moon, and it's also a monthly Blue Moon, the occurrence of two Full Moons within one month.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 30, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 99% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mare Vaporum, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Mare Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Mare Frigoris, Apennine Mountains, and the Clavius Crater. Finally, if you really want to see more, a telescope will help you see the Apollo 12 and 17 landing spots, and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

May is an exciting month for Moon watchers, as it features two Full Moons instead of the usual one. The first occurred on May 1, the Flower Moon, and the second is set to appear on May 31.

When a month contains two Full Moons, the second one is known as a “Blue Moon." Don't worry, you're not going to look up and see a literal blue colored moon in the sky, the name just refers to its rarity.

Intrigued? Keep reading to find out more about the second of this month’s Full Moons.

When is the May full moon?

The Full Moon will occur on Sunday, May 31. Time and Date estimates it will peak at 4:45 a.m. ET.

What is the May full moon called?

This Moon is simply known as a Blue Moon, perhaps a nod to the famous saying...

These occur when there are two Full Moons in the same month. Because the lunar cycle is just under 30 days, the timing occasionally lines up like this, with one Full Moon at the start of the month and another at the end. It’s fairly rare, only coming around every couple of years, NASA says. This is known as a monthly Blue Moon.

There’s also something called a seasonal Blue Moon, which is when a season has four Full Moons instead of the usual three.

When is the next full moon?

The next Full Moon will take place on June 29.

What are the lunar phases?

The Moon goes through eight phases as it orbits Earth over about 29 and a half days. At each point, the Sun lights up a different part of it from our perspective, even though we always see the same side. As it moves along its path, the lit portion grows and shrinks, shifting from full brightness to partial glow and back again.The phases are:

• New Moon — The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (so, we don't see anything).

• Waxing Crescent — A small sliver of light appears on the right side

• First Quarter — Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

• Waxing Gibbous — More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

• Full Moon — The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

• Waning Gibbous — The moon starts losing light on the right side

• Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) — Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

• Waning Crescent — A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

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Based on a strange clue, astronomers have found a collection of young red dwarf stars in space that may have gobbled up rocky planets — perhaps similar worlds to Earth.  

Like sniffing a teenager's breath for alcohol or cigarette smoke, researchers noticed the stars had more lithium in their atmospheres than they should. That could mean they still had the stench of their last meal on them. 

A red dwarf is a small, cool type of star, and lithium is a lightweight chemical that stars eventually destroy through nuclear reactions. In stars like these, lithium usually disappears early in life because the stars' hot interiors incinerate it. By the time these stars reach adolescence — around 50 to 200 million years old — astronomers expect little to no trace of lithium.

But a team found six stars out of thousands surveyed that broke the rules in a new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. These stars contained much more lithium than other stars of the same age in their clusters, said Robin Jeffries, lead author of the paper, from Keele University in the United Kingdom. The lithium-rich stars made up only about 2 to 3 percent of stars in that temperature range, making them rare but not flukes.  

"Even a small amount of lithium stands out clearly in these stars — a bit like throwing paint onto a blank canvas," Jeffries said in a statement. 

Astronomers already knew stars could swallow planets, but the evidence has usually come from faint, debatable chemical detections. This study may have found a much clearer signal: young red dwarf stars somehow regained lithium, likely by swallowing several Earths' worth of rocky planet material that contains the element. 

The findings suggest planetary systems — especially around red dwarfs — may go through a far more tumultuous childhood than astronomers realized. Instead of forming neatly and staying put, rocky worlds may regularly collide, scatter, or spiral into their stars during the first few hundred million years. 

That matters because red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Milky Way and host vast numbers of Earth-size planets, including many in potentially habitable zones, where temperatures are not too hot or cold for liquid water on their surfaces. If those rocky exoplanets are sometimes eaten by their stars, that may mean some Earth-like worlds die before they could have a chance to spark life. 

Researchers identified the red dwarfs with high lithium levels from the Gaia-ESO Spectroscopic Survey, conducted using the FLAMES instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Credit: ESO / H.H.Heyer

Other than the presence of lithium, the stars looked normal. They sat in the same locations as other cluster members, moved through space the same way, and appeared to be about the same age. That ruled out the possibility that they were just younger stars mixed into the sample.  

The researchers did consider other explanations for the chemical. One idea involved magnetic activity because strong magnetic fields and starspots can sometimes slow lithium destruction in young stars. But that explanation wasn't a good fit because most of the lithium-rich stars spun slowly; fast rotation usually links to stronger magnetic activity.  

Another idea suggested the stars kept feasting from their birth disks for an inordinate length of time. But the team thought that scenario probably wouldn't preserve enough lithium. That left planet swallowing as the leading explanation. Rocky planets contain lithium, so devouring them would temporarily spike the lithium level in the star's outer layers.  

The team estimated each star may have swallowed material equal to about three to 10 Earths.  

That may sound extreme, but astronomers already know many red dwarf stars host compact systems packed with rocky planets. Computer simulations also show that young planetary systems often become chaotic. Gravitational interactions can fling planets inward until the star engulfs them.  

Researchers think these events likely happened after the stars stopped rapidly destroying lithium. Depending on each star's mass and inner workings, their lithium signatures could now remain for millions of years. 

A Blue Origin New Glenn spaceship has exploded, disappearing in a massive ball of fire during a test on Thursday night. Fortunately, no injuries have been reported, but it's an expensive setback for Jeff Bezos' space company. 

The New Glenn rocket had been undergoing a static hot-fire test at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at the time of the explosion. A static hot-fire test is a trial run of the rocket's launch system, involving fuelling up the vehicle and briefly firing all its engines without disengaging the launch mount. 

Unfortunately, this trial didn't go as planned. At approximately 9 p.m. ET the rocket "experienced an anomaly," which is Blue Origin-speak for "rapid unscheduled disassembly," which is SpaceX-speak for "exploded in a giant fireball." SpaceX suffered a similar accident last June, when its Starship spacecraft also exploded during a static fire test.

One first stage New Glenn rocket reportedly costs over $100 million to build.

The explosion was caught on camera by Spaceflight Now and NASA Spaceflight.

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"We experienced an anomaly during today's hotfire test," the official Blue Origin X account posted shortly after the explosion. "All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more."

Bezos reiterated that all personnel were safe in a post from his personal X account, and said that an investigation into the incident is now underway.

"It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it," Bezos wrote. "Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it."

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New Glenn is Blue Origin's attempt at building a reusable orbital rocket. On Wednesday, the company announced that New Glenn's fourth launch would place 48 Amazon Leo satellites into orbit, with further details to be revealed at a later date.

We're just a few nights away from the Blue Moon, so there's plenty surface features to spot on the Moon tonight. But what are they? Keep reading to find out.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 91% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need visual aids to be able to moon gaze, especially if its a clear night. With just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Kepler Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Posidonius Crater, Archimedes Crater, and the Clavius Crater. If you have a telescope, you'll see the Caucasus Mountains, Descartes Highlands, and the Schiller Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is big and bright in the sky tonight, so what can you see? With the help of NASA's Daily Moon Guide, keep reading to find out.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 28, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 91% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need visual aids to be able to moon gaze, especially if its a clear night. With just your naked eye, you'll be able to spot the Mares Imbrium and Vaporum, and the Kepler Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Posidonius Crater, Alphonsus Crater, and the Clavius Crater. If you have a telescope, you'll see the Apollo 11, 14, and 17 landing spots.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through a repeating pattern of eight distinct phases. Although the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the portion illuminated by the Sun changes as it moves around the planet. This is what creates the different shapes we see in the night sky, from thin crescents to half Moons and the full Moon. Together, these phases form the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Right now astronomers are dealing with their own chicken-and-egg conundrum: Which came first, the galaxy or the big black hole inside it? 

Astronomers often estimate the weight of a black hole by using the brightness and width of certain light signals in space coming from hot gas. 

Some researchers have argued those methods severely exaggerate the masses of strange "little red dots" in the early universe. Since their discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, what they actually are has divided the community: Some think they contain growing black holes; others argue the black holes might be much smaller than they seem — or, might not exist at all. 

For the first time, a team took a direct measurement of a little red dot, Abell2744-QSO1, and found that not only were the earlier estimates pretty spot on, but also, the object almost certainly contains an enormous black hole, roughly 50 million times heavier than the sun. 

Then the study got weird. 

Normally, galaxies and their central black holes grow together: Big galaxy equals big black hole. But QSO1 barely seems to have a galaxy at all. The black hole may outweigh all the stars around it combined.  

"To our knowledge, this … makes QSO1 the most 'naked' massive [black hole] ever found," the authors wrote in their Nature paper. "This demonstrates the possibility of [black hole] primacy, that is, [black holes] forming and growing earlier than their host galaxy." 

To directly measure the object's mass, the researchers mapped the motion of glowing gas around QSO1's center. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / L. Furtak et al / A. Pagan

How astronomers directly measured it

Astronomers see QSO1 as it existed only about 700 million years after the Big Bang because of its extreme distance. 

To directly measure the object's mass, the researchers mapped the motion of glowing gas around QSO1's center. Gas near a massive object moves faster because gravity pulls harder on it. The team found that QSO1's gas rotated in a way that matched what physicists expect around a compact, extremely massive object.  

The researchers proceeded to test other explanations — like whether a tightly packed bundle of stars sat in the center instead of a black hole — but the numbers just didn't work. To explain the observations without a black hole, the stars would need to squeeze into an impossibly small area — much denser than known star clusters.  

A black hole is an area in space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape it. A supermassive black hole is the same but on a vastly larger scale, containing millions or billions of times the sun's mass. The black hole at the center of the Milky Way, called Sagittarius A*, weighs roughly 4 million suns. Messier 87, the galaxy famous for providing the first direct image of a black hole, is as massive as 6.5 billion suns.

The James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers discover loads of "little red dots" in the early universe. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / D. Kocevski

Why they call it "naked"

The team describes QSO1 as a "naked" black hole because it appears to be sitting in a vacant, primitive environment — perhaps before a normal galaxy fully formed around it. 

Scientists still don't know how the first supermassive black holes formed so quickly after the Big Bang. The usual models for how galaxies grow struggle to explain these extreme cases. 

One idea is that a massive gas cloud collapsed directly into a black hole extremely early in cosmic history. Another concept scientists consider is that some kind of original black hole formed almost at the beginning of time, possibly within the first second. 

What's becoming clear is that some black holes were enormous from the get-go, somehow able to form without a gigantic host galaxy to feed them or a phase of many massive stars collapsing and merging, said Roberto Maiolino, a coauthor from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, in a statement.

"It’s a paradigm shift," Maiolino said, "a total revisiting of the classical scenarios of how black holes form and grow."

NASA has started locking in the first missions it says will turn the moon's south pole into a place where astronauts can actually stay and work.

The U.S. space agency announced Tuesday that three initial moon base-building missions this year will send cargo and vehicles for moving crews across the surface to the lunar south pole. The work builds on the recent Artemis II crewed flight around the moon and sets up a busier end to this decade, when astronauts start spending more time on the lunar surface.

The accelerated plan unfolds amid a broader rivalry with China, which has mounted a series of lunar missions and sketched out a long‑term research station for its own astronauts, known as taikonauts. Both countries now see the moon as the next stage for human exploration and a race for leadership in deep space.

China has its first human landing in its crosshairs and could beat NASA back to the surface of the moon. The United States' last crewed landing occurred in 1972, and no other nation has ever put boots on the lunar ground. Right now, NASA is targeting a landing of its Artemis IV mission in late 2028. 

"What we are embarking upon is extremely challenging, and we know so little from what is a combined 80 hours of lunar astronaut EVA time across the Apollo missions, and that was more than a half-century ago. So we are not jumping right into the glass-dome moon base," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in Washington during a news briefing. "We are leveraging the NASA playbook from the 1960s, figuring out what works and what doesn't, in this epic science of survival."

The moon base's construction at the south pole is split into three phases. First, it focuses on making landings reliable, trying out ways to survive the brutal polar environment, and delivering an initial trickle of cargo. Next, NASA and its partners add bigger power systems, more cargo runs, and, eventually, places where astronauts can live and work for longer stretches.

In the final phase, heavy cargo versions of commercial landers haul larger hardware — habitats, bigger power plants, more capable rovers, and science instruments — so astronauts can assemble the base over dozens of flights.

The moon base push comes as a clear pivot from NASA's earlier plan. Until recently, the agency's roadmap leaned heavily on Gateway, a small space station proposal that would have orbited the moon rather than established an outpost on the ground. Leaders now say they will shift their funding and workforce toward the base effort and look for ways to reuse some Gateway components.

The south pole sits at the center of the new strategy. Craters there stay in permanent shadow and likely hold frozen water. Nearby ridges can get sunlight for most of the lunar day. Water could supply drinking water, oxygen, and even rocket fuel. Steady light makes solar power easier. NASA wants to learn how to run a base in this region before it sends people on months‑long trips to Mars.

"The moon base is as beautiful as it is hostile," Isaacman said. "We go for the technology we will pioneer to get there, the science, and all that we will learn that will make life better here on Earth."

The first big step is Moon Base I, which will fly Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander to a spot NASA calls Shackleton Connecting Ridge near the rim of Shackleton crater. The mission, targeted for launch no earlier than fall 2026, will carry NASA instruments, including stereo cameras to watch how rocket exhaust throws lunar dust and rocks and a laser reflector that helps orbiting spacecraft pinpoint their exact location using bounced laser light. NASA says this flight will cut risk for crewed Artemis landings.

Two more missions follow. Moon Base II, planned for launch later this year, will ride on Astrobotic's Griffin lander and deliver more than 1,100 pounds of cargo, including Astrolab's FLIP rover, to shake out early mobility systems. Moon Base III, also targeted for this year, will fly on Intuitive Machines' Nova‑C Trinity lander and carry the Lunar Vertex science package to study strange bright "swirl" markings on the surface, along with instruments from the European Space Agency and South Korea's astronomy institute.

NASA has begun to stage missions intended to deliver hardware and vehicles to the lunar south pole for the construction of a moon base. Credit: NASA illustration

To help crews and robots get around, NASA picked two companies to build lunar terrain vehicles — essentially moon‑ready utility trucks. The agency awarded about $219 million to Astrolab and $220 million to Lunar Outpost for the first phase of these rovers, which it wants operating by 2028. Astrolab's CLV‑1 rover weighs about 2,000 pounds in its stowed form, carries two astronauts plus cargo, and can top 6 mph on flat ground. Lunar Outpost's Pegasus rover can drive for up to a year, run under manual, remote, or autonomous control, and reach more than 9 mph.

NASA also plans a hopping‑drone mission, called Moonfall. In 2028, a Moonfall flight will send four small drones that make short hops across the south pole, then settle in and keep working for several months through the harsh lunar night. They will scout rough terrain, search for signs of buried ice, and beam back sharp images that help later landers avoid hazards. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California leads the drone design, and Firefly Aerospace will build the spacecraft that ferries them from Earth orbit to the Moon.

All of this plugs into the broader Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the surface and then push on to Mars. Artemis III, targeted for mid‑2027, will test more of the pieces the moon base needs, including docking with commercial landers. 

NASA officials say they do not know yet exactly where a long‑term base will sit or what it will look like. For now, they want many landers, rovers, and drones to explore different ridges and craters, then gradually build up something more like a small lunar neighborhood spread across a wide area, said Carlos García-Galán, the program executive for the moon base.

"With crews coming to the surface twice a year, we can expand the time that they can expend there before they come back home," said García-Galán. "Eventually, when we've matched the assets, habitation modules, with the logistics and all the things to move the logistics around, then we'll be able to say, 'Hey, we're permanently here, and we're not giving it up.'"

SpaceX launched Flight Test 12 of its reusable Starship Version 3 rocket from Starbase in South Texas. The mission included deploying 22 Starlink satellite dummies, including one carrying a camera that captured views of Starship’s heat shield during flight. The test ended dramatically as SpaceX continued pushing development of the massive rocket system.

A one‑legged robot that jumps instead of rolls could help scientists explore the icy geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus, sampling material from a hidden ocean that may be friendly to life.

The early mission concept, known as LEAP — short for Legged Exploration Across the Plain — imagines a robot about one-foot tall and weighing roughly 2 pounds. Rather than driving like a Mars rover, LEAP would use a spring‑driven leg, a pair of wheels, and internal spinning "reaction wheels" to roll, tip itself upright, and launch into long, arcing hops.

Funded by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program, the LEAP project builds on a real-world prototype, called SALTO. Though it looks like a little pogo stick — or Pixar's boinging lamp — its jumping action actually takes inspiration from squirrels. (If that's not cute enough, imagine scientists collecting data from squirrels with high-speed cameras while the critters traverse a homemade parkour course.) The researchers published their results in Science Robotics last year.

Whether the hopping robot ever reaches Saturn will depend on mission choices still years away. But you can watch the little robot do its thing in a new video just released by NASA further down in this story. 

Enceladus has become a prime target in the search for life beyond Earth. Beneath its bright ice crust lies a global ocean. Near the south pole, deep fractures nicknamed "tiger stripes" vent that water into space as plumes of ice grains and gas. Those jets give scientists a rare advantage in the outer solar system: They can sample ocean material without drilling through miles of ice.

Reaching those jets is not straightforward. The region around them looks fractured and uneven, with steep ridges, broken ice fields, and powdery material. Other options, like aircraft, have limits as well, said Justin Yim, a mechanical science and engineering assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Conventional rovers may struggle to navigate this rugged terrain. Flying poses its own challenges," said Yim at the 2025 NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts symposium. "Enceladus has no atmosphere, and the use of rocket-based propulsion [would risk] contaminating samples. It is in this context that we find jumping to be uniquely promising."

Because Enceladus has extremely weak gravity — about one-eightieth of Earth's — a relatively small push can send an object traveling far. Researchers estimate LEAP could travel roughly 560 feet — close to the length of two American football fields — in a single hop and rise about 300 feet into the air.

Each jump would play out in slow motion compared with Earth. That long airtime is central to the design. It would allow the robot to pass directly through a plume while in flight. A single hop could last close to a minute, with several seconds spent inside the icy spray.

During that time, onboard instruments could analyze ice particles, measure composition, and capture data on how the plume behaves. Contrary to popular belief, more legs wouldn't necessarily improve its jumping performance, Yim says.  

"One is a great number for jumping, particularly because it has this great advantage of allowing you to concentrate your actuation in one very powerful and simpler design," he said at the symposium last year. "Multiple legs give you a lot of benefits for doing things like sitting or standing on the ground, but you could do those equally well with wheels."

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LEAP's two wheels and one leg give it three points of contact, which makes the robot stable in that position as well, he said.

The robot would likely ride to Enceladus aboard a larger spacecraft that first orbits the moon and then lands, a setup often described as an Orbilander. From that base, LEAP could deploy, make repeated jumps between vents, and go beyond the landing zone.

But before any mission becomes real, engineers still need to demonstrate that the system can survive Enceladus' extreme cold, which reaches about minus -330 degrees Fahrenheit, and test how its foot behaves on unfamiliar ice. Most development will have to happen through simulations and lab testing.

"It's going to be difficult to get the same type of conditions we'll have on Enceladus," Yim said. "It's extremely, extremely cold, and the type of ice particles we'll encounter there are probably very different from what we'd see in natural environments on Earth."

The Moon is brighter again tonight, with most of its surface now illuminated as we head towards the Full Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 25, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 69% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

When you look up tonight, without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis, as well as the Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Clavius Crater. Finally, with a telescope you'll see the Apollo 16 and 17 landing spots and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is a little brighter tonight, with just over half its surface lit up as it keeps moving through the lunar cycle.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 24, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 59% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

You don't need visual aids to look at the Moon. In fact, when you look up you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, Apennine Mountains, and the Mare Nectaris. Finally, with a telescope you'll see the Apollo 16 landing spot, the Linne Crater, and the Rupes Altai.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Tonight marks the First Quarter Moon, when roughly half of the Moon’s visible face is illuminated.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 23, the Moon phase is First Quarter. Tonight, 48% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion and Posidonius Craters, and finally, a telescope will reveal the Apollo 11, 16, and 17 landing spots.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is nearing its First Quarter phase tonight, meaning almost half of its visible surface is now illuminated as it continues its monthly journey around Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 22, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 37% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, with just your naked eye you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars you'll also be able to catch a glimpse of the Endymion Crater, and a telescope will reveal the Apollo 11 and 17 landing spots.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA's Psyche spacecraft just snapped some unusual new views of Mars that may require cocking your head sideways.

These space images can play tricks on your brain. At first glance, the bright white feature looks less like a polar ice cap and more like the eye of a storm or a cloud bank hanging off the edge of Mars. But that glowing patch is actually the planet's frozen south pole. Because Psyche approached the Red Planet from a steep angle during its May 15 flyby, the familiar orientation has shifted dramatically here, pushing the south pole to the side of the frame instead of the bottom.

The photos, captured as the spacecraft used Mars for a gravity assist on its way toward the asteroid belt, offer the sharpest look at the water ice-rich south polar cap. The frozen region stretches more than 430 miles across, and Psyche photographed it at a resolution of just over a half-mile per pixel.

The flyby itself was more than just a photo op. Psyche passed within 2,864 miles of the Martian surface, using the planet to boost its speed by roughly 1,000 mph and redirect its path toward the asteroid Psyche, a metal-rich object orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.

Scientists are especially interested in Mars' south polar cap because researchers still debate what may lie beneath it. Radar observations have hinted at possible underground liquid water under the ice, while newer studies suggest the signals could instead come from buried rock or dust layers.

"This new data won't settle the debate," said Gareth Morgan, first author on research that was published six months ago about the ice cap, but "it makes it very hard to support the idea of a liquid water lake."

The mystery has kept the region under close scrutiny for years. In 2018, scientists working with the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter announced evidence that suggested it may have a buried lake under nearly a mile of ice. Because liquid water is considered one of the key ingredients for life, the juicy finding immediately drew global attention.

But newer observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter complicated the picture. Using a more powerful radar technique, researchers revisited the same region and found weaker signals than expected for liquid water. Some scientists now suspect the readings point to smooth rock layers or ancient lava flows trapped beneath the ice.

NASA's Psyche captured the sharpest-yet view of the ice cap at Mars's south pole after it made its close approach on May 15, 2026. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU

The polar caps are scientifically important because they record Mars' climate history. The caps consist of stacked layers of water ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and dust deposited over vast spans of time. Scientists compare them to pages in a history book because the layers may preserve evidence of how Mars' conditions changed over billions of years.

Though Psyche's flyby captured thousands of images of Mars and its atmosphere, scientists used the encounter primarily as a rehearsal for the mission's future arrival at asteroid Psyche. During the close approach, engineers calibrated cameras and other instruments.

Scientists suspect asteroid Psyche could be the exposed metallic core of an early failed planet, offering a rare glimpse into the deep interior of worlds like Earth. But given that the robotic spacecraft won't arrive for another three years, the team has plenty of time to keep an eye on the planet in its rear view, said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. 

"As the spacecraft continues its journey after the flyby," Bell said in a statement, "we'll continue calibration imaging of Mars for the rest of the month as it recedes into the distance."

The Moon is still in its Crescent phase, but it's getting more and more illuminated each night as we work through the lunar cycle, the roughly month-long journey of the Moon’s changing phases as it orbits Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 21, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 27% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. Binoculars or a telescope will also bring the Endymion Crater into view.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

SpaceX plans to launch the next test of Starship on Thursday evening after a seven-month break spent rebuilding major parts of the rocket and its launch site.

The company last flew Starship in October 2025. Since then, engineers have redesigned the engines, reworked the spacecraft's heat shield, and built a new launchpad at Starbase, SpaceX's private launch complex in South Texas.

The upcoming mission, known as Flight 12, will debut what SpaceX calls the next generation of Starship and its Super Heavy booster. Together, the two stages stand about 400 feet tall and form the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built.

The test carries high stakes for both SpaceX and NASA. The U.S. space agency plans to use Starship to land astronauts on the moon as part of its Artemis program later this decade. At the same time, SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants the vehicle to eventually carry people and cargo to Mars. But before that can happen, the company must prove the rocket can launch reliably, survive the fiery plunge back through Earth's atmosphere, and eventually fly again without months of repairs between missions.

"The Starship production pipeline is full and will complete roughly 10 more ships and about half that number of boosters this year," Musk said in an X post on Monday. "If something goes wrong, it will not be a major setback, unless the launch stand is destroyed."

How to watch SpaceX's Starship launch

People can watch the launch live on SpaceX's website or on the company's X account. The webcast is expected to begin as early as 4:45 p.m. CT on Thursday, May 21, or about 45 minutes before liftoff. SpaceX says the launch window opens at 5:30 p.m. CT, though weather or technical issues could still delay the attempt. The date has already been pushed back a couple of times, and the company has created a social media thread to track the postponements. 

The long gap since the last flight reflects how much SpaceX has changed after earlier tests exposed weaknesses in the hardware. But the overhaul extended beyond the rocket itself. The launch site now includes a new launch mount, upgraded fuel systems, and redesigned "chopsticks," the mechanical arms meant to catch returning boosters.

A revamped Starship rocket and spacecraft sit fully stacked at the private SpaceX launchpad in South Texas ahead of Flight Test 12. Credit: SpaceX

One of Starship's biggest trouble spots is its heat shield, which uses thousands of protective tiles to protect the spacecraft during reentry from space. As Starship falls back through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, friction superheats the air around it. Earlier flights lost tiles or suffered damage underneath them.

This time, SpaceX plans to intentionally remove one tile so engineers can study how the surrounding tiles handle the stress. The company also painted some tiles white to help onboard cameras track changes during flight.

Flight 12 will also test upgrades to the rocket's Raptor engines. The newer versions generate more power while using fewer exposed parts — changes SpaceX hopes will improve reliability and reduce maintenance.

The mission includes several other experiments aimed at future deep-space flights. Starship will deploy 20 mock Starlink satellites during the more than one-hour test and attempt to restart one of its engines while in space, a maneuver future moon and Mars missions will likely require. If the ship completes the flight, it is expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, the Super Heavy rocket booster will attempt a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico rather than returning to the launch tower for a midair catch. SpaceX says it chose the more cautious approach this time because the booster design changed significantly since earlier flights.

Even after nearly a dozen test missions, Starship remains very much a work in progress. SpaceX follows a development strategy that relies on frequent testing, accepting failures, and quickly redesigning hardware between flights.

Meanwhile, NASA is rewriting its moon plans around SpaceX and competitor Blue Origin's commercial hardware, bending the missions around their contractors' needs to get astronauts onto the surface faster. In public, they talk about cadence and "muscle memory." Behind the scenes, they're watching one thing above all: how quickly SpaceX can reshape its lunar lander to match the new schedule. 

"SpaceX has been considering alternatives of their current Starship design," said Lori Glaze, NASA's acting exploration chief, "while implementing a more streamlined approach to try and speed things up and pull things forward."

The Moon is beginning to brighten again on its right-hand side, although only a thin crescent will be visible tonight, but it's enough to give keen skywatchers a glimpse of some Moon features.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, May 20, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 17% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

After nights of darkness, there's finally enough of the Moon illuminated to begin making out some of its surface features again. For example, without any visual aids, you'll be able to spot the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. Binoculars or a telescope will also bring the Endymion Crater into view.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is starting to reappear on the right side, but there's still just a small sliver tonight. Can you see anything on its surface?

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, May 19, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 9% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Unfortunately, too little of the Moon is illuminated at the moment to make out any noticeable surface features.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to orbit Earth completely, passing through eight phases during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces Earth, the way sunlight hits its surface changes throughout its orbit, creating the familiar full, half, and crescent appearances we see in the night sky. Altogether, the lunar cycle consists of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Scientists detected a mysterious radio signal that lasted nearly three weeks, shattering previous records and pointing to an enormous magnetic structure that trapped energetic particles in space high above the sun.

The signal came from a so-called "type IV radio burst," a kind of radio noise associated with solar eruptions. Scientists usually watch these bursts flare up and disappear within mere hours. But this one persisted for about 19 days — almost four times longer than the previous record-holding event.

Several NASA and European Space Agency spacecraft observed the phenomenon, which happened last August, as the sun rotated. The Solar Orbiter saw it first. Nearly two weeks later, the Parker Solar Probe and Wind spacecraft near Earth detected the same signal. STEREO-A, short for the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory,  picked it up a day after that. This pattern hinted it was one long-lived source rotating with the sun rather than a succession of unrelated eruptions.

The signal also pulsed in a surprisingly regular rhythm. Roughly every 45 minutes to an hour, the radio emission brightened and dimmed. Researchers think enormous magnetic structures above the sun may have vibrated, almost like a ringing bell, periodically affecting the trapped electrons.

"Those vibrations probably squeezed and stretched the trapped electrons in a repeating cycle, which changes the brightness of the radio signal," according to NASA. 

The observations suggest the sun can maintain huge, organized reservoirs of energetic particles for weeks at a time. By studying this extraordinary event, scientists think they have gained a way to estimate the location of solar radio sources using only one spacecraft, a technique that could eventually improve space-weather forecasts. That's valuable because, while solar storms aren't harmful to human health on Earth, they can wreak havoc on satellites, GPS systems, radio communication, and power grids.

The researchers, who published their findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, believe the source sat near a "helmet streamer," a giant arching magnetic structure that rises from the sun's atmosphere and stretches far into space. They estimate that the structure measured more than 1.2 million miles wide — enormous even by solar standards.

The event coincided with three fast coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, massive eruptions that blast plasma and magnetic fields into space. The scientists suspect those eruptions repeatedly supplied fresh electrons or reshaped the magnetic environment in ways that kept the signal alive.

NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft tracked the radio burst between Sept. 6 to 9, 2025, mapping the emissions as they rotated across the sun. Credit: Vratislav Krupar et al 2026 ApJL 1003 L5 / https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae5537

The radio waves themselves showed an unusually strong polarization, meaning the waves oscillated in an ordered way rather than a chaotic one. That clue suggested the electrons moved through a surprisingly organized magnetic environment.

Scientists still don't know exactly how the sun made the radio waves, but they have two ideas. One explanation involves plasma emission, a common process in which energetic electrons moving through thin gas naturally create radio signals. Another possibility involves a rarer mechanism that behaves somewhat like a natural microwave laser in space and may operate inside unusually low-density magnetic cavities.

While the researchers don't have a clear understanding of the phenomenon, their evidence points toward a giant, rotating magnetic trap that survived for weeks while solar eruptions continued feeding it energetic particles.

The study also tackles a longstanding technical problem. Low-frequency solar radio waves bend and scatter as they travel through space, making their true source elusive. The researchers developed a correction method to account for some of that distortion. Using the new technique, they traced the source to heights between 2.5 to 4.3 million miles above the sun. 

The scientists say future missions could combine the technique with improved radio imaging and particle measurements to track solar eruptions more accurately.

There's a small sliver of the Moon in the sky tonight, but is it enough to spot any surface features?

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 18, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 3% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Unfortunately, there is still too little of the Moon's surface lit up to be able to see anything on its surface.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

There is still very little visibility of the Moon tonight, but we are now in a new lunar phase and it will slowly begin to reappear.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 17, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 1% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

The Moon is too dimly lit tonight to be able to spot any surface details.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

On the moon, not much can survive the arctic plunge of nightfall, where temperatures can dip to -330 degrees Fahrenheit for the two-week stretch of darkness each month. 

As more nations and private space companies attempt uncrewed moon landings, the dangers of lunar exploration have come into sharp focus. Even robotic missions that survive touchdown face another major threat: the brutal cold of the lunar night. Few landers and rovers ever wake after enduring the deep freeze. At cryogenic temperatures, soldered metal joints begin to fail and batteries die. 

That harsh environment presents a real challenge for NASA as it pursues a return of astronauts to the moon — especially to the south pole, which has some of the coldest temperatures in the solar system — but not an insurmountable one. 

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At Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, a team of engineers is testing a piece of equipment in a thermal vacuum chamber, putting the hardware through its paces. The chamber shifts from the extremes of 300 degrees Fahrenheit to -330 degrees Fahrenheit. Through repeated hot and cold cycles, the testing mimics real temperature swings that could happen between deep shadow and full sun at the lunar south pole, where Artemis IV may land with a crew as early as 2028. 

Based on test results, the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, is expected to become the first U.S. instrument to survive a full polar night, a milestone for NASA's plan to build a long-term moon base in the treacherous region. 

"No one, no American payload, as far as we know, has ever been able to say that they have survived the lunar south pole during its lunar night and been functional," said Samantha Hicks, the lead systems engineer for LEMS. "We are on track to become the first U.S. payload to do that."

The LEMS device is a key piece of hardware for NASA's lunar ambitions, tracking how the ground shakes on the moon for up to two years. The suitcase-size box will keep a constant ear to the ground for moonquakes and asteroid strikes — not just at the lunar south pole, but around the entire moon. 

Perhaps surprisingly, the moon remains seismically active, despite its lack of plate tectonics like we have on Earth, said Naoma McCall, LEMS co-investigator and deployment lead. The Apollo missions more than 50 years ago placed similar seismometers on the moon and recorded deep and shallow tremors, thermal events, and meteoroid impacts. But those midcentury instruments shut down in 1977 and provided an incomplete picture of what's going on in the moon's crust and mantle, she said. 

Samantha Hicks, left, and Naoma McCall, representatives from the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station team, flank a model of the future Artemis instrument at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on April 21, 2026. Credit: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

More data is crucial for NASA to safely establish a lunar outpost for humans to live and work, especially if the polar region turns out to shake more often — or more strongly — than predicted.

"There's a lot we don't know about the lunar interior because we only had the observations from the near side," McCall said, referring to the lunar hemisphere facing Earth, where all Apollo missions landed.

For decades, many far‑flung space missions have stayed warm with small nuclear heat sources that slowly release energy as they decay. Those systems are powerful but rely on scarce fuel. Furthermore, they add cost, complexity, and safety reviews. If this small piece of equipment can ride out the lunar night using only sunlight, batteries, and insulation, NASA could replicate the model for faster and simpler surface gear in the future. 

To install LEMS, an astronaut will nestle the box in a trench and drill cylindrical holes nearby to bury two sensors under ground. Engineers designed the 66-pound box so one person could carry it. If that load still sounds too heavy, remember that everything on the moon feels about one-sixth lighter than it does on Earth. 

After making sure the system is pointed in the right direction, the astronauts can set it and forget it, McCall said. A team practiced deploying the equipment at the University of Central Florida, in a room full of artificial moon soil, to ensure it could be executed in simple steps. 

A team integrates the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, instrument, which will track moonquakes and shakes, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

"We'll flip three switches and then walk away," McCall said.

While the outside of the box bakes and freezes, the most important internal components — the battery, autonomous computer, and other electronics — stay between about -22 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Engineers say that tighter internal range is what allows the equipment to continually operate, even as its shell faces the brunt of the lunar conditions.

The key to maintaining that consistent internal temperature is an advanced thermal blanket. The proprietary material, developed by Colorado-based Quest Thermal Group for NASA, is called Integrated MultiLayer Insulation, or IMLI. NASA also worked with partners to adjust how it will charge the lithium-ion battery to survive the extreme cold.

"Lithium ion absolutely hates going below -30 degrees [Celsius]. That's when you start getting lithium ion plating," said Hicks, referring to a problem that happens when the batteries can no longer absorb the chemical that carries the energy. "It's all about surviving that lunar night and worst-case scenario." 

After recent changes to the Artemis launch campaign, NASA has begun reworking the high-level plan for the upcoming moon-landing mission. The agency will decide whether the LEMS cargo will fly on Artemis IV after it has finalized the official list of everything onboard. In the meantime, the team will complete the rest of the testing schedule over the next few months.  

It's a new lunar phase tonight, and the end of the current lunar cycle. Keep reading to find out what this means.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 16, the Moon phase is New Moon. Tonight, 1% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There isn’t enough light or visibility tonight to make out any features on the Moon’s surface.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is now almost entirely out of view as we approach the New Moon, can you see anything tonight?

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 15, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 4% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There isn't enough visibility tonight to see anything on the Moon's surface. After the New Moon, visibility will start to return.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is now almost completely out of sight, with just a few days left until the New Moon. Keep reading to see what, if anything, you might be able to spot in the night sky tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 14, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 9% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

To spot anything in the sky tonight, you’ll need either binoculars or a telescope. With the help of one, you should be able to make out the Grimaldi Basin.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases along the way. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the changing angle of sunlight as it orbits creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, the lunar cycle is made up of eight main phases:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Two rovers have had big breaks over the past few years in the case of whether Mars ever hosted life. 

Curiosity, which is exploring Gale Crater, conducted a chemistry experiment on a rock sample that revealed complex carbon compounds. Perseverance, about 2,300 miles away at Jezero Crater, found fossilized material that an ancient alien microorganism could have excreted. 

Despite the compelling leads, NASA doesn't know whether ancient living things produced these organic molecules or if some other process, such as chemical reactions between rock and water, did. Because of instrument limitations, it's doubtful the U.S. space agency will ever be able to rule that possibility out, unless the samples come back to Earth.

"This finding by our incredible Perseverance rover is the closest we've actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars," said Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator for science, last year.

But a team of scientists has suggested a new way to look at samples that could help close the gap of ambiguity. The idea is surprisingly simple: Rather than try to look for specific molecules in a sample, study the overall pattern of chemicals within it. 

The researchers compared samples from living organisms, fossils, ocean sediments, meteorites, asteroid material, and lab experiments that simulated early-Earth or space chemistry. They specifically homed in on amino acids, which build proteins, and fatty acids, which contribute to cell membranes. They found that life organizes chemicals differently.

It turns out a strong statistical divide exists between biological and nonbiological samples, according to a new study. The results are published in Nature Astronomy. Though looking for molecular diversity in a sample is not a silver bullet for detecting aliens, it could offer one more strong piece of evidence to weigh in the balance. 

"Astrobiology is fundamentally a forensic science," said Gideon Yoffe, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, in a statement. "We’re trying to infer processes from incomplete clues, often with very limited data collected by missions that are extraordinarily expensive and infrequent."

In the study, amino acids from biological samples usually contained a wider and more balanced and organized mix of compounds because cells actively make many compounds for specific jobs. Abiotic samples — specimens formed without life — tended to look sparse, with a few simple amino acids dominating the mixture. Some contaminated meteorites shifted closer to the biological group, indicating that biology changes chemical patterns in recognizable ways.

The researchers also found samples that leaned in the other direction. Biological samples that had suffered heavy damage from heat, radiation, or age started to resemble nonliving chemistry because they lost molecular diversity over time. Ancient rocks, fluids from hydrothermal vents, and some fossils all showed signs of this deterioration.

Scientists wondered whether radiation could erase the biological signal. They simulated conditions in the icy surface layers of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and found that the diversity pattern often survived, even after substantial chemical damage.

Fatty acids, on the other hand, showed the opposite trend but still clearly distinguished life from non-life. Because living cells rely on a narrower set of fatty acids for membranes, the biological samples appeared less evenly distributed. Nonliving chemistry produced broader, more uniform mixtures, according to the study.

Hannah McLain works at Goddard Space Flight Center's Astrobiology Lab, where samples of asteroid Bennu are studied. Credit: NASA / Vivian Renkey

The statistical strategy could improve current space missions designed to perform chemical analyses and some life-detection tests. Scientists often search for unusual isotope ratios or molecular "handedness," but those signals can fade over time and require sensitive instruments. 

Curiosity or Perseverance could potentially do this kind of statistical test if ever the rovers were to detect a broad suite of related organic compounds and measure the reliable relative amounts of those different molecules, said Fabian Klenner, a UC Riverside assistant professor of planetary sciences and coauthor on the paper. The current limitation isn't that the rovers are incapable of analyzing molecular diversity, but that they need a sample rich and varied enough in organic data. 

The technique might be especially useful for NASA's eight-rotor Dragonfly aircraft, which is expected to explore Titan, an icy moon of Saturn, in the mid-2030s. The aircraft will have a mass spectrometer device designed to analyze and characterize organic molecules. 

"Dragonfly is another interesting case," Klenner told Mashable. "If it can resolve organic molecules and their relative abundances, then I would love to see our diversity approach applied to the data." 

The Department of War (DOW) and the ODNI have begun a historic effort to review and release tens of millions of records regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). Watch the newly released videos of unidentified flying objects.

The Milky Way's core doesn't look like the ancient stellar graveyard many astronomers once thought it was.

At the heart of a massive new survey from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are mapping one of the most crowded regions in our galaxy. Early results from the project may help address a long-running debate about the age of the Milky Way's central bulge — the tightly packed region of space surrounding the galaxy's core.

For decades, many astronomers treated the bulge as a relic from the Milky Way's earliest years. Previous studies of star brightness and color placed most of its formation around 10 billion years ago. By comparison, our solar system formed just 4.6 billion years ago.

But newer research has complicated that picture. Some studies suggest a noticeable share of stars near the galactic center may be much younger — perhaps only 5 billion to 8 billion years old. If true, that would mean the Milky Way kept developing its central region far later than some scientists had ever imagined. If astronomers can determine when the bulge's stars formed, they can reconstruct how the galaxy itself grew and changed over time.

The Hubble survey will build a catalog of 20 to 30 million objects in this dense region, said Sean Terry, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The team has published a paper on the Hubble survey in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Researchers designed the Hubble program to support the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will search the same region for planets using gravitational microlensing, a technique that detects distant objects by measuring how their gravity bends and brightens starlight. The Roman mission could launch as early as this fall. 

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"The main goal of these observations is to be able to identify objects that participate in lensing events during the Roman survey, catching them before they undergo the lensing event," said Jay Anderson, a co-author based at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, in a statement. "When, in a couple of years, an event happens during Roman's long stare at the field, we can go back and say, 'This was a red star, this was a blue star, and the event happened when the red star went in front of the blue star.'"

But the Hubble survey also stands on its own. It delivers one of the sharpest wide-area views ever captured of the Milky Way's crowded core, where dust clouds block much of the light and stars are so tightly packed that their images often overlap. By distinguishing those stars more cleanly, the survey allows astronomers to assemble a consistent catalog across 354 fields near the galactic center. 

Even so, conditions vary sharply throughout the region. In some fields, astronomers match thousands of stars to measurements from the Gaia spacecraft, a mission that tracked star positions and their motion across the sky. In others, dense dust blots out so much light that only a few hundred stars appear clearly enough for comparison.

The variation itself helps map the inner galaxy. It shows where dust obscures the view and where starlight passes through more easily. While Hubble sharpens the view of crowded stars, it cannot remove the effects of dust. That means there are still some patchy areas of the Milky Way's interior.

The Hubble Space Telescope reveals the Milky Way's crowded core in this 2018 image of the galactic bulge. Credit: NASA / ESA / Thomas Brown

Researchers expect future work from the survey to produce detailed maps of the interstellar dust in the galactic center, showing where starlight is blocked and where it shines. That will help astronomers trace how stars are distributed.

The Roman telescope will repeatedly monitor the same region and track changes in how stars move and brighten over time across millions of objects. By collecting Hubble images years earlier, astronomers effectively created a "before" snapshot of the galactic bulge.

That long time gap could help scientists measure how fast stars drift across the sky with unusual precision. It may also help them identify faint or otherwise hidden objects through their gravitational effects.

The Moon is losing visibility each night as we approach the New Moon. With just a few nights left before it's total darkness, keep reading to find out what you might be able to see tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 11, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 36% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you can see the Kepler Crater and the Aristarchus Plateau. If you have binoculars or a telescope, these should help you see the Gassendi Crater, Clavius Crater, and Mare Humorum.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is now in its Waning Crescent phase, which means we're getting closer to the New Moon and a start of a new lunar cycle. Over the coming nights, visibility will reduce significantly. But for now, there's still some features to be seen, so keep reading to find out what you can see on the Moon tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 10, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 46% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you can see the Kepler Crater and the Aristarchus Plateau. If you have binoculars, pull them out to catch a glimpse of the Gassendi Crater, Clavius Crater, and Mare Humorum. Finally, if you have access to a telescope, enjoy gazing at the Apollo 14 landing spot and the Schiller Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

On Gemini 7's second lap around Earth, as the spacecraft glided over the Caribbean Sea, astronaut Frank Borman glanced outside and radioed a deadpan report: "We have a bogey at 10 o'clock high."

That moment in 1965 passed, folded into NASA's growing pile of strange-yet-seemingly-innocuous space oddities. But President Donald Trump's new UFO files suggest it never really left the government's imagination.

The release, published May 8 through a new government archive for unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, pulls together records from NASA, the FBI, and several intelligence agencies. UAP is Washington's new catch-all for UFOs and other odd events that officials can't immediately explain. The administration says more files will arrive in rolling batches on a new website over the coming weeks. Its white-on-black typeset and grainy military photos add a nostalgic X-Files flair.

Astronauts have always carried unusual weight in UFO lore. They are trained observers, steeped in checklists and telemetry, but also symbols of humanity's push into the unknown. So when astronauts reported strange lights, drifting objects, or puzzling events in orbit, those accounts tended to stick — even when later investigations pointed to equipment glitches, space junk, or natural occurrences.

The newly released records don't prove extraterrestrial life exists, and officials repeatedly caution that many cases remain unresolved simply because investigators never collected enough data to reach a firm conclusion. 

"I applaud President Trump's whole-of-government effort to bring greater transparency to the American people on unidentified anomalous phenomena," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. "We will remain candid about what we know to be true, what we have yet to understand, and all that remains to be discovered. Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge are core to NASA's mission as we endeavor to unlock the secrets of the universe." 

NASA astronauts repeatedly reported strange sights during missions to the moon and aboard the United States' first space station, according to newly highlighted material in the files. The records include astronaut transcripts, crew debriefings, an audio recording, and annotated photographs, spanning missions from Gemini 7 in 1965 through Skylab in the 1970s.  

Gemini 7 astronauts reported a 'bogey' in orbit

During the Gemini 7 mission in 1965, astronaut Frank Borman radioed mission control to report what he called a "bogey," a military term for an unidentified aircraft. Borman and astronaut Jim Lovell also described a cloud of particles drifting near their spacecraft. Lovell later described a bright object that he saw against the darkness of space. Handwritten notes attached to the transcript labeled the event a "UFO sighting by Borman."  

Apollo 11 crew spotted lights on the way to the moon

Apollo 11 astronauts described several unusual observations during the first human moon landing mission in 1969. 

Buzz Aldrin told debriefers the crew saw a large object while en route to the moon and examined it with a monocular. The astronauts speculated it may have been part of the Saturn V rocket. Aldrin also described repeated flashes of light inside the spacecraft cabin. He later reported seeing a bright light the crew tentatively identified as a laser during their return to Earth.  

An area of interest above the lunar horizon is highlighted in this view from the 1969 landing site of the Apollo 12 mission. Credit: NASA / Department of Defense

Apollo 12 astronauts watched drifting glowing particles

Apollo 12 astronauts reported multiple unexplained sightings during their 1969 mission. 

Alan Bean described seeing particles and flashes of light "sailing off in space" while using the spacecraft's optical telescope. Commander Pete Conrad later described illuminated debris floating outside the lunar module before the light source suddenly disappeared. 

The archive also includes several Apollo 12 photographs marked with highlighted "areas of interest" above the lunar horizon.  

A smattering of five areas of interest are highlighted in this image taken from the Apollo 12 landing site on the moon. Credit: NASA / Department of Defense

Apollo 17 crew described mysterious objects

Back in 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts reported some of the most detailed observations in the archive. 

Ronald Evans described bright particles tumbling near the spacecraft, while Harrison Schmitt compared the scene to "the Fourth of July." Commander Eugene Cernan later reported intense flashing lights that appeared bright enough to resemble a train headlight. Schmitt also reported seeing a flash on the lunar surface near Grimaldi crater. 

Another Apollo 17 image in the archive shows three unexplained dots in a triangular formation. Government analysts have reopened the case and obtained the original film for further study, according to the file.  

Skylab crews repeatedly saw flashes

Astronauts aboard Skylab, America's first space station, documented unexplained sightings in 1973 and 1974.

One crew saw frequent light flashes while trying to sleep. Another tracked a bright reddish object for several minutes, eventually concluding it moved in an orbit similar to Skylab's. A later crew reported flashing lights outside the station moving independently of the spacecraft, though astronauts suspected the objects may have been debris or satellites. 

It's a new lunar phase tonight, the Third Quarter. This means around 50% of the Moon is illuminated and we're even closer to the New Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 9, the Moon phase is Third Quarter. Tonight, 56% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you look up with you no visual aids tonight you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Tycho Crater and the Oceanus Procellarum.

If you have binoculars, you'll be able to see the Mare Humorum, Alphonsus Crater, and Alps Mountains are just a few. And that's not all, if you have a telescope you'll see all this and the Fra Mauro Highlands and Caucasus Mountains.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

As NASA's Juno flew around Jupiter last week, the spacecraft snapped a photo of an object before it could make a clean getaway. 

That clunky, bumpy thing at the far right edge of the frame is Thebe, the second largest of the gas giant planet's inner moons. The rarely photographed Jovian world was caught on camera May 1, during a close pass. (It's actually not quite clear whether Juno saw it coming or going.)

Though the mission's JunoCam takes most of the stunning imagery from Jupiter's system, this picture came from the little-known Stellar Reference Unit instrument. The spacecraft was just 3,100 miles away from Thebe in space when it took the portrait. Each pixel represents just under 2 square miles. 

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"While the SRU's primary function is to image star fields for navigation, its high sensitivity in low-light conditions makes it a powerful secondary science instrument," according to NASA. 

As of the latest count, Jupiter has a bevy of 115 moons. But unlike the large Galilean moons that astronomers have known since the 17th century, Thebe is a modern-day discovery. Scientists first learned of its existence during the Voyager 1 mission in 1980. The moon is one of four small natural satellites that circle Jupiter inside the orbit of Io, a larger tortured world with active volcanoes. 

Thebe sits at the outer edge of Jupiter's so-called "gossamer" rings and is believed to play a crucial role in their formation. Scientists think these fainter rings are the product of meteors slamming into Thebe and neighboring moon Amalthea. The impacts are thought to then cause rocks and dust to spray into space around the planet.

The little-known Stellar Reference Unit, an instrument that helps NASA navigate Juno, took the image of Thebe. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech infographic

Thebe, named after one of Zeus' nymph lovers in Greek mythology, is predominantly red and only about 60 miles wide. Its most distinctive feature is a huge central depression, known as Zethus crater, on the far side of the moon. It spans almost half the width of the moon itself. 

Despite its diminutive size, Thebe is built for speed. At a distance of 138,000 miles from Jupiter, it zooms around the planet every 16 hours. That's fitting for an image whose target looks like it's sprinting away. 

As of 2026, the spacecraft has orbited Jupiter for nearly a decade. It's studying the origin and evolution of the gas giant planet and its network of moons and dust rings. 

During Juno's primary mission, the spacecraft collected data on Jupiter's atmosphere and interior. Among its discoveries was finding that the planet's atmospheric weather layer extends way beyond its water clouds. 

After completing 35 orbits, the spacecraft transitioned to looking at the entire system around Jupiter. While the JunoCam has been responsible for many key observations, the SRU instrument has made its own discoveries, such as the "shallow lightning" in Jupiter's atmosphere.

The extended mission will continue until the spacecraft dies. Though Juno will eventually fall toward Jupiter as its trajectory degrades, NASA says it poses no risk of crashing into or contaminating any of the moons, some of which could be habitable worlds.

It's the day before the Third Quarter, so the Moon is closer to 50% illuminated. During this phase of the lunar cycle, the Moon is only half lit again, but this time it’s the opposite side compared to First Quarter, as the Moon moves toward the new moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 8, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 66% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you look up with you no visual aids tonight you'll be able to spot the Mare Imbrium, Tycho Crater and the Kelper Crater.

If you have binoculars, you'll be able to see even more, including the Clavius Crater, Gassendi Crater, and Apennine Mountains are just a few. And that's not all, if you have a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 15 landing spot, the Schiller Crater, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We're just a couple of days away from the next phase of the lunar cycle, the Third Quarter. This is when the Moon appears to be around half full, lit only on the left side (right side if you're in the Southern Hemisphere).

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, May 7, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 74% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There is still enough of the Moon's surface illuminated to see features on it tonight. For example, if you look up with your naked eye you'll be able to spot the Mares Serenitatus, Vaporum and the Oceanus Procellarum.

If you have binoculars, you'll be able to see even more, including the Clavius Crater, Mare Humorum, and Alps Mountains are just a few. And that's not all, if you have a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 and 15 landing spots as well as the Rima Hyginus.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, passing through eight different phases along the way. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the way sunlight falls on it changes as it moves, which is what creates the familiar full, half, and crescent shapes. In total, there are eight main phases in the lunar cycle:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Newborn stars born in the biggest stellar clusters tear themselves out of their birth clouds much faster than those that grow up in small clusters, according to a new study. 

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope, researchers studied nearly 9,000 examples from four different galaxies: Messier 51, Messier 83, NGC 4449, and NGC 628.

Because no one can watch a single cluster evolve over millions of years in space, scientists instead observed many clusters at different intervals and treated them like snapshots in a sequence. Some stars were still completely buried in dust. Some had partly emerged. Others were fully exposed.

What researchers found was a consistent pattern: The star clusters moved through the same sequence but how quickly depended on their mass. For the largest clusters, clearing the cloud of gas and dust may only take about 5 million years. The smaller ones may not break free for 7 to 8 million years.

The research puts real numbers on something that has remained ambiguous up until now. Simulations of star formation already factor in so-called "stellar feedback" — the radiation, stellar winds, and supernovas that young stars produce — but the models disagree on how fast those events and processes blow away gas. These new measurements, published in Nature Astronomy, give scientists a concrete timeline based on a large sample, said Angela Adamo, a lead author on the study from Stockholm University and the Oskar Klein Centre in Sweden.

The patterns showed up everywhere the team looked, even though each galaxy doesn't look or behave the same way. That consistency suggests the timing isn't just a product of a local quirk in one environment, but a basic feature of how star clusters evolve.

The clusters all started off similarly: with baby stars releasing their energy in secret. At the earliest stage, they're hidden deep within a thick cloud of gas and dust that blocks their visible light. Only infrared light can pass through that haze.

Inset images zoom in on newborn star clusters in Messier 51, one of the four galaxies included in the new James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble study. Credit: ESA / NASA / CSA / A. Pedrini / A. Adamo

As the concealed stars grow, they change their environment, heating the surrounding gas and blasting out radiation and fast stellar winds. Over time, that energy pushes the gas and dust away, revealing what's inside.

By counting how many clusters appear in each stage, the researchers estimated how long each phase lasts. The idea is simple: If lots of clusters show up in a stage, it tends to last longer; if only a few do, it's over more quickly.

Once the cloud is gone, there's nothing holding the stars back. Their ultraviolet radiation can travel farther through their home galaxy, colliding with nearby gas and influencing where new stars can or cannot form next.

When that stellar feedback is unleashed, it creates a lot of waste, sterilizing regions of galaxies. Most of the gas never gets used for star formation. 

That extends to planets, too. Young stars form with disks of gas and dust around them, and those disks birth planets. If a cluster blows away its surrounding material quickly, those disks get exposed earlier, vulnerable to harsh radiation that can interrupt the process of world building. 

The research has implications for scientists working on a variety of cosmic mysteries, said Alex Pedrini, lead author of the study, who is also based at Stockholm University and the Oskar Klein Centre in Sweden.

"We can look into the cradles of star clusters and connect planet formation to the cycle of star formation and stellar feedback," he said in a statement.

An icy world, perhaps just 300 miles wide and far beyond Pluto, may have air, challenging the assumption that small space objects can't hold onto an atmosphere.

This world, known as 2002 XV93, orbits in a distant region sprinkled with leftover rubble from our solar system's early planet-building days. Astronomers often study this ancient detritus, referred to as Trans-Neptunian Objects, by waiting for remnants to pass in front of stars. During rare alignments, researchers can measure how the starlight changes to learn about an object's size and features, such as rings or debris.

What scientists saw instead for this object was startling. On Jan. 10, 2024, the little object eclipsed a faint star — a star so anonymous it doesn't even have a common name. But that event, seen from East Asia, revealed thin air on 2002 XV93.

Typically, if an object has no atmosphere, the background starlight disappears abruptly as the object blocks it. Instead, telescopes recorded a gradual fading out and in of the light at the beginning and end of the event — a sign that an atmosphere had bent or scattered it.

"Our findings suggest that a fraction of distant icy minor planets can exhibit atmospheres," the researchers wrote in a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. 

The researchers estimated that an extremely thin atmosphere, with a surface pressure between about 100 and 200 nanobars, surrounds the object. That level is far thinner than Pluto's atmosphere but stronger than anything previously measured around similar small bodies in the outer solar system.

In a post on X, lead author Ko Arimatsu said this is the first detection of an atmosphere for a Trans-Neptunian Object beyond Pluto. It's not known yet what gases are in the world's air, but methane, nitrogen, or carbon monoxide are the team's best guesses, based on their observations.

The discovery shocked scientists because astronomical models indicate small, distant objects should not be able to maintain an atmosphere — at least not for very long. Under weak gravity, gases tend to escape into space, meaning any atmosphere would likely dissipate within a few hundred to a few thousand years.

That may suggest the researchers caught a temporary atmosphere for the object at just the right time. 

The authors proffer a few scenarios for how 2002 XV93's atmosphere could have formed. One possibility is that a comet or asteroid could have crashed into the world recently, releasing trapped gases. Another possibility is that cold volcanoes could have vented gases instead of lava, or internal heat or chemistry could have pushed gases to the surface. 

If the air fades over time, it likely came from a collision. If it continues or changes in cycles, that may mean internal mechanisms are responsible. The team favors the former explanation over the latter.

Scientists say they'll need to study the object more to solve the mystery. They already have James Webb Space Telescope observations of the target that show no indication of frozen material that could have turned into gas.

As we move through the lunar cycle, you'll notice small changes in the Moon's shape each night. Right now, we're in the waning phase. This means it will be losing light on the right side until we reach the New Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, May 4, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Serenitatus, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrim. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Endymion Crater, and the Mare Humorum. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 landing spot, the Rima Hyginus, and the Descartes Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

When NASA makes a new timelapse video, it's not for reminiscence or clout chasing on the Internet.

The U.S. space agency recently pulled together images from Curiosity, one of its two robotic rovers on Mars, for a scientific purpose. The two-minute video provides a quick succession of clips spanning six years of exploration at Gale Crater. Each image shows the rover ambling over crumbling lithic landscapes as it slowly climbs Mount Sharp, which rises three miles above the basin floor. 

The montage isn't just an intriguing look back on the mission, but a tool for the rover's science team. Using views from Curiosity's right navigation camera, mounted on its head, the researchers analyze the sand grains shifting on the rover's deck. 

You can watch the Martian dust churn in the rover's treads in the Instagram post below. (The Lenny Kravitz soundtrack, though not for science, certainly adds to the appeal.) 

"Distinguishing between sand jostled by each drive and wind gusts can provide new information about seasonal changes in the atmosphere," the agency said. 

Curiosity took these images between Jan. 2, 2020, and March 8, but the rover's journey began long before that. After eight months and 352 million miles flying through space, the rover landed on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012. Its mission: Find out if this smaller neighboring world ever had conditions to support living creatures. 

NASA's question was answered rather quickly. Within a year, the rover had drilled a rock sample from a long-gone lakebed and confirmed the region had the right chemistry for habitation in its ancient past, as well as potential nutrients for microorganisms. 

Since then, the rover has continued to study the alien environment using its internal chemistry lab. A recently published study revealed the rover detected 21 different organic molecules in a small rock sample, the largest set found on the Red Planet so far. Among the findings, Curiosity discovered preserved complex carbon material. Life could have produced them, though NASA can't say for sure, as chemical reactions between water and rock could also create these molecules. 

As scientists monitor the shifting sand for clues about Mars' seasonal changes, engineers keep a close eye on how that dust and debris put wear and tear on the vehicle. Almost since the beginning of the journey, the team has noticed sharp rocks in the terrain ravaging Curiosity's wheels, even causing punctures. 

Before the rover's sibling launched, NASA went back to the drawing board. Engineers built Perseverance with hardier wheels made from thicker aluminum. Each wheel is powered by its own motor and can turn in a full circle, allowing it to dodge and swerve around hazards more easily. 

Engineers inspect damage to Curiosity's wheels on Mars on April 18, 2016. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

But to help the elder rover, NASA has problem-solved alternative techniques, such as driving in reverse. Software engineers also provided upgrades that gave Curiosity's team more control over individual wheel speeds to reduce the force of jagged rocky surfaces. Those efforts have kept the rover trucking, which has traveled 23 miles on Mars. 

Wheel damage isn't the only concern in the harsh conditions on Mars. Many a mission has succumbed to the effects of blustery Martian winds, which kick up dust that then settles on solar panels.

Such was the fate of Curiosity and Perseverance's predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, who died from dust choking their vital power sources.

The Moon is still pretty full in the sky, so there's lots of opportunity to catch a glimpse of some special features on its surface.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, May 3, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 98% of the moon will be be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Serenitatus and Vaporum, and the Oceanus Procellarum. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Endymion Crater, and the Mare Humorum. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 and 17 landing spots, as well as the Descartes Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

By trading wheels for helicopter blades, NASA is upping its game for the Dragonfly mission, a flying machine intended to explore Titan, an icy moon of Saturn. 

The team has started assembling the honeycomb panels for the aircraft's main body, completed a series of drop tests on the parachute system, and demonstrated that its compact chemistry lab can pick out tiny amounts of target molecules in test samples.

This NASA robot, expected to launch as early as 2028, is no space orbiter. Dragonfly will be an SUV-size, eight-rotor aircraft, designed specifically to navigate the hazy orange skies of Titan, a world larger than the planet Mercury. It will explore the alien landscape much like NASA's fleet of rovers, except Dragonfly will have a much faster way of getting from Point A to B. In the words of Back to the Future's Doc Brown: "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." 

Titan, about 886 million miles from Earth, is the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. But Titan's air is thick — about 1.5 times the pressure at Earth's sea level and roughly three times as dense, said Charles Malespin, who leads the team that built the hardware for analyzing Titan's samples. Because it is so cold in this alien world, gases like methane become liquids, and the atmosphere turns into a heavy blanket. Meanwhile, the moon has just one-seventh Earth's gravity.  

"That's why an octocopter is primed for that, because you could fly very easily through it," Malespin said. "We could cover a huge amount of terrain and explore a much larger area."

Scientists see Titan as a kind of time machine for understanding how life begins. Its methane‑rich atmosphere constantly produces complex organic molecules that dust the icy surface, creating dunes and deposits of carbon‑based material. On early Earth, similar chemistry may have helped make the building blocks of life, but our planet's surface has since changed dramatically because of life and geology. 

Titan, by contrast, stays frozen and preserves that chemistry. By flying from dune fields to an ancient crater where water and organics could have mixed, researchers hope Dragonfly will allow them to study how simple ingredients evolve into more complex molecules. 

"There was a melt pool that may have lasted up to about 1,000 years. That is a lot of time for chemistry to happen between the organics that are depositing in it and the water," said Melissa Trainer, a planetary scientist and the lead for Dragonfly's DraMS instrument, a quasi-acronym for its mass spectrometer. "Who knows what we could make in a 1,000-year chemistry experiment?"

For a handful of reporters at Goddard Space Flight Center in April, NASA walked through how the $3.35 billion mission will drill into Titan's rock-hard ice, analyze samples with its built‑in chemistry lab, and then lift off again to explore a new spot. The device will use a carousel of 40 sample cups, tiny ovens, and a laser to study the Saturn moon's plentiful organic material.

It's the opposite of what the tiny drone Ingenuity, which went kaput two years ago, faced on Mars. There, the air is about 100 times thinner than Earth's. To lift itself, Ingenuity needed very long blades and a featherweight body, leaving hardly any wiggle room to carry instruments.

But for Dragonfly, engineers can exploit its larger body to stuff it full of tools. 

"If you had cardboard wings, you could fly just by pushing because the atmosphere is pretty much so thick there," Malespin said. 

NASA Dragonfly team members begin integrating the sample carousel into the DraMS mass spectrometer instrument. Credit: NASA / Mike Guinto

Mobility is the other key reason NASA built Dragonfly as an aircraft. Rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars move slowly, perhaps half a football field in a day. Dragonfly, on the other hand, could traverse miles.

Researchers will use the mission's measurements collected over three years to study prebiotic chemistry, the steps that occur on the way to making life. They are looking for familiar building blocks, such as amino acids, nucleobases, and fatty acids.

But one limitation for the mission is that Dragonfly can't explore Titan's lakes or seas of liquid methane and ethane at the north pole. Instead, the robot is built to explore an equatorial region of dunes. That's fine with the team, said deputy project scientist Shannon MacKenzie, because some of the materials scientists are looking for on Titan don't dissolve well in liquids anyway. 

"We want to go to the sand," MacKenzie said. "Those organic sand particles are probably the end result of a lot more of that chemistry than what we would be able to slurp up out of the lakes."

Awaiting those detections will take a great deal of patience for the team. The journey alone to get to Titan in the outer solar system will take nearly seven years. 

It's the day after the Full Moon, and it still looks almost 100% in the sky. With this in mind, be sure to look up and try and catch a glimpse of some features on the surface tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, May 2, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 100% of the moon will be still be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Crisium and Vaporum, and the Tycho Crater. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Archimedes Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 and 17 landing spots, as well as the Descartes Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

May is an extra special month for astronomy fans, because there isn't just one Full Moon, there's two. The first is the Flower Moon, named for the time of year when little signs of Spring start to appear. At the end of the month, we’ll see a Blue Moon. This doesn't have anything to do with its color, but simply the name given to a second Full Moon within the same calendar month.

Keep reading to find out more about this month’s Full Moon.

When is the May full moon?

The full moon will occur on Friday, May 1. Time and Date estimates it will peak at 1:23 p.m. ET.

What is the May full moon called?

One of the most beautiful parts of Spring is the return of flowers blooming. Daffodils are in full swing and wildflowers start to reappear, and summer starts to feel closer. This very experience is why the May full moon is called the Flower Moon, explains Royal Museums Greenwich.

When is the next full moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are the lunar phases?

The Full Moon is one of eight stages the Moon moves through during its roughly 29.5-day orbit around Earth. At each stage, a different portion of its surface is illuminated by the Sun from our viewpoint on Earth. Although we always face the same side of the Moon, the shifting position of sunlight across its orbit is what creates the changing appearance, from fully lit, to partially bright, to almost dark as the cycle progresses.

The phases are:

• New Moon — The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (so, we don't see anything).

• Waxing Crescent — A small sliver of light appears on the right side

• First Quarter — Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

• Waxing Gibbous — More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

• Full Moon — The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

• Waning Gibbous — The moon starts losing light on the right side

• Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) — Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

• Waning Crescent — A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

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It's the Full Moon, and the first of two in May. This one is known as the Flower Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, May 1, the Moon phase is Full Moon. Tonight, 100% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Serenitatis, Tycho Crater, and the Copernicus Crater. With binoculars, you'll see the Posidonus Crater, Archimedes Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 16 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Space fans can now order Rise, the plushie that stole the world's hearts when it flew around the moon with the Artemis II astronauts. 

The soft, squishy toy is what's known as a zero-gravity indicator, a small object that floats to show the crew and mission control when the capsule has reached space. The tradition dates back to the early 1960s and has continued with Beanie Babies, Snoopy, Baby Yoda, and other stuffed animals that sometimes reach mascot status.

Dreamed up by second-grader Lucas Ye, Rise is a smiling moon wearing a cap that resembles Earth. The design represents the famous Earthrise image taken during Apollo 8, when humans first saw our home planet hovering just above the moon's horizon.

Lucas crafted his own prototype before winning a NASA contest last year out of more than 2,600 entries. The crew  — Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — had the final pick. During the mission, Rise had an SD card carrying over 5.6 million people's names, submitted from space fans around the world, tucked in a tiny pocket.

The character quickly became a breakout star of the mission, the first flight to deep space in a half-century. The public reaction appeared to catch the agency off-guard. NASA doesn't make its own merchandise, and it had not issued any licenses to manufacture the toys before the launch on April 1. That meant the Kennedy Space Center gift shop and others were inundated with requests for Rise over the course of the 10-day mission with not one plushie on the shelves to sell.

"We sincerely appreciate your excitement and support," the Kennedy shop had said in a notice on its website earlier this month, "and kindly ask for your patience as fulfillment times may be longer than usual."

Rise zero-gravity indicator designer Lucas Ye, a second-grader from California, attends the Artemis II launch at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1, 2026. Credit: NASA / Keegan Barber

Popularity skyrocketed as people saw the crew's affection for Rise, whom Koch called their "stowaway." During live broadcasts, Glover would position the plushie in front so it would look as though it were talking into the floating microphone. Wiseman was spotted leaving the bobbing Orion spacecraft with Rise hooked onto his pressure suit. 

"I was supposed to leave Rise in Integrity," he said on X, referring to the crew's nickname for their space capsule, "but that was not something I was going to do." 

One day later, Wiseman showed that Rise was still safe in his custody, tethered to his water bottle. 

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Where to buy NASA's official Artemis II plushie "Rise"

Now, three weeks after Artemis II's successful return to Earth, customers can purchase their own Rise plushies from NASA Exchange, the self‑funded network of gift shops that does not run on taxpayer dollars. Along with the plushies, which retail for $24.99 apiece, are other mementos featuring Rise, including a T-shirt that reads "Copy, Moon Joy," a slogan that had its own viral moment during the test flight.

There are sure to be some differences between the original and its mass-produced doppelgängers. The moonbound Rise was bespoke, made at NASA's Thermal Blanket Lab in Maryland out of strict, spaceflight-approved materials. It's unclear whether these plushies will also feature the tiny footprint on the back, representing Neil Armstrong's one small step. NASA officials didn't immediately respond to questions from Mashable.

The official Rise plushie can be purchased for $24.99 from NASA Exchange. Credit: NASA

Because the winning design from the contest had a late reveal — just five days before liftoff — commercial vendors didn't have time to prepare licensed versions of Rise, said David Rager, creative director at NASA.

Orders for Rise merchandise may take up to eight weeks to fulfill. All profits will go toward activities and facilities that serve NASA employees. 

"This little guy, Rise, really resonated with us," Koch said.

It's day 13 of the lunar cycle, and the day before the Full Moon. If it's a clear sky where you are tonight, chances are you'll spot lots of features on the Moon's surface.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, April 30, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 98% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mare Serenitatis, Tycho Crater, and the Copernicus Crater. With binoculars, you'll see the Alps Mountains, Archimedes Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 16 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

As a U.S. satellite monitored the sun for hazardous space weather this week, something unexpected slipped into view.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-19 orbits about 22,300 miles above Earth and carries instruments that can track solar activity. Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field shield people from the worst health effects of radiation during geomagnetic storms, but these events can still disrupt power grids and navigation systems.

“But sometimes, other activity comes into view that, while not space weather, is still fascinating!” the agency wrote Monday on X.

That activity was Comet C/2025 R3, which recently made its closest approach to both Earth and the sun. In footage posted by NOAA, the giant space snowball suddenly darts across the solar camera's field of view. You can watch it in the X post below.

The satellite's coronagraph was able to capture the images because of how the instrument works. It blocks the sun's blinding face to create an artificial eclipse — similar to using your hand to shield your eyes from a bright light. That lets forecasters watch solar storms erupt from the sun's outer atmosphere, events that would otherwise be lost in the glare.

Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, and solar flares are both enormous explosions on the sun and sometimes occur together. Through specialized telescopes, flares appear as flashes, while ejections look like fans of gas blasting into space, according to NASA. Plasma from a CME can travel more than 1 million mph and usually reaches Earth within about three days.

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Watch the video of Comet R3 from the above X post.

Astronomers discovered Comet R3 in September 2025. The first reports came from Pan-STARRS2, one of two 1.8-meter reflector telescopes at Haleakala on Maui in Hawaii. The observatory scans the sky for near-Earth objects and has been especially successful at finding new comets.

R3 quickly drew attention because many astronomers had predicted it could be the brightest comet to enter the inner solar system this year. Though it may not have been visible to the naked eye, some astronomers expected it to be bright enough for small binoculars.

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The comet made its closest pass by Earth on Sunday, April 26, coming within 45.5 million miles of the planet — roughly half the distance between Earth and the sun. As of Tuesday, it was flying through the constellation Cetus.

Comets formed in the outer solar system about 4.6 billion years ago, during the earliest days of planet formation. Made of ice, dust, and rock, they orbit the sun and may have delivered water and organic compounds — the chemical precursors of biology — to early Earth.

As a comet nears the sun, its ice changes directly from solid to gas, releasing material that forms its glowing tail. Unlike meteors, which streak briefly as shooting stars, comets can trail millions of miles of vaporized ice, dust, and carbon dioxide.

It may appear full, but the Moon isn't actually at 100% illumination yet. In fact, we're still a couple of days away. But it's still big and bright enough to do some moon gazing, so keep reading to find out what features you might be able to see tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, April 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrium. With binoculars, you'll see the Mare Frigoris, Clavius Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rima Ariadaeus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We're approaching the first of two Full Moons in May, so that means the Moon is looking particularly bright in the sky right now. For keen moon gazers, this means there is plenty of exciting features keep an eye out for. But what exactly can you see? Keep reading to find out.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, April 28, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 89% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. With binoculars, you'll see the Mares Frigoris and Nectaris, and Apennine Mountains should also come into view. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 15 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The famous Sombrero Galaxy now appears as more than a wide-brimmed hat floating in deep outer space. 

New images from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile reveal a gigantic halo surrounding the galaxy, stretching three times its width. Already considered one of the largest objects in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, the galaxy's expansive glow is roughly 150,000 light-years wide. 

The pictures come from the Dark Energy Camera, an instrument mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation's Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope. Though the camera was built for a study that ended in 2019, it continues to aid astronomers, providing new insights for even the most photographed cosmic targets. 

"This may be the first time the halo has been captured with this level of detail and at this large a scale," according to NOIRLab, a program of the National Science Foundation. 

Discovered in 1781 by the French comet hunter Pierre Méchain, the Sombrero is a nearly edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away from Earth in the Virgo constellation. Méchain was an associate of renowned astronomer Charles Messier, but the object was only scribbled onto Messier's personal copy of the Messier Catalogue. 

It wasn't until two other astronomers — William Herschel and Camille Flammarion — observed the galaxy that it was formally added to the catalog in 1921. Back then, it was merely known as Messier 104. 

The intriguing galaxy later earned its nickname for its uncanny resemblance to a Mexican hat. Its central bulge looks like the crown and a dark dust trail brings to mind a wide brim. Though the object can't be seen with the naked eye, many amateur astronomers enjoy gazing at it through binoculars and small backyard telescopes. 

But different observatories tend to bring out different features in the galaxy. The James Webb Space Telescope homed in on the Sombrero about 1.5 years ago, and showed it in a different light — literally. From Webb's infrared perspective, the hazy bulge was decapitated, revealing instead a smooth core. 

Researchers are interested in the galaxy for its roughly 2,000 globular clusters containing hundreds of thousands of old stars. Though the stars within them are of similar ages, their masses and characteristics vary. 

The new images also highlight a stellar stream emerging from the south side of the galaxy. The feature is faint but vast. 

"The halo and the stellar stream are populated with stars that have been torn from their home galaxies," according to NOIRLab, "hinting at a past galactic merger between the Sombrero and a smaller satellite galaxy."

Blue Origin successfully launched and landed its New Glenn rocket, marking a key step for reusable orbital missions. The booster, “Never Tell Me The Odds,” completed another flight after its earlier mission and landed on the droneship “Jacklyn.” It’s a significant milestone for Space technology and reusability.

Astronaut and Artemis II pilot, Victor Glover, spoke about seeing parts of the moon that no other human has seen and getting to manually 'fly' the Orion spacecraft.

We're approaching the Full Moon, which means the Moon is shining big and bright in the sky. It's day 10 of the lunar cycle, and with so much of its surface illuminated, there's lots for us to see. Keep reading to see exactly what you can spot.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, April 27, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 82% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars, the Mares Frigoris and Nectaris, and Apennine Mountains should also come into view. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 15 landing spot, Rima Hyginus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We're now in the Waxing Gibbous phase of the lunar cycle. This means most of the Moon’s face is lit up at this point, making it especially bright in the night sky. Read on to see what details you can spot tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, April 26, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 73% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you're looking at the Moon with just your naked eye, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the Mare Crisium, Copernicus Crater, and Tycho Crater. If you have binoculars, the Mare Frigoris, Posidonius Crater, and Apennine Mountains should also come into view. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rupes Altai, and Rupes Recta.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA's Curiosity mission has found so many simple carbon-based molecules on Mars over the years that the discoveries may now seem altogether routine. 

Scientists know those ingredients matter because life on Earth depends on carbon, but the discoveries have often felt limited, like finding a few breadcrumbs without the loaf.

Now a new lab result from the rover suggests those earlier "crumbs" may have been fragments of something bigger: much more complex carbon material. That means a record of the planet's ancient, long-gone chemistry is locked inside Martian rocks, and scientists have a way to tap into it.

Curiosity ran a unique experiment on a rock sample it collected six years ago, using a special chemical and heat. The technique revealed 21 different organic molecules, the largest set found on the Red Planet so far, said Charles Malespin, the space agency's lead scientist for the rover’s chemistry lab.

The findings, published this week in Nature Communications, raise the stakes in the search for life on Mars. The study suggests the planet didn't just have scattered ingredients for biology on its surface. Mars actually managed to retain that material inside rocks for billions of years. That preservation doesn't prove the Red Planet was habitable, but it does point to past conditions gentle enough to protect complex carbon compounds — perhaps the same mild environment needed to support life itself.

"Before you can have life, you need an environment where that life can get what it needs to survive," Amy Williams, the paper's lead author from the University of Florida, told Mashable. "Our discovery not only expands the catalog of known molecules, but tells us that some of the building blocks for life as we know it on Earth were also present on Mars in the ancient past."

Among the cache were seven never-before-seen molecules on Mars, including a nitrogen heterocycle, a ring-shaped structure more complex than a simple carbon chain. Nitrogen stands out because it plays a central role in DNA and RNA on Earth, the molecules that carry genetic information for every organism.

These nitrogen heterocycles haven’t just been absent from previous Mars measurements — they've also never been found in Martian meteorites that fell to Earth, Williams said. She has called the discovery "profound."

NASA's Curiosity rover explores a clay-enriched area in Gale Crater on Mars. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

Other detections included naphthalene and benzothiophene. Those compounds typically form when larger carbon structures break down, supporting the idea that the original material inside the rock was complex.

Living things could have produced these organic molecules, but scientists can't say that yet. Chemical reactions between water and rock can also create them. Still, researchers are encouraged because the detections show Mars' radiation, climate, and other harsh conditions didn't completely erase this raw material. That resilience bodes well for future experiments and missions: If life ever emerged on Mars, scientists may be able to detect molecules made by long-extinct alien microorganisms.

The sampled rock formed about 3.5 billion years ago in Gale Crater, a basin that once held water. If Mars ever developed life, or even came close, this kind of preserved material is where scientists would expect to find chemical traces of that attempt. The specimen came from a location nicknamed Mary Anning, after the English paleontologist.

The actual drill hole where Curiosity took the rock sample for the chemistry test is labeled Mary Anning 3 in this annotated image. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

The rock’s clay-rich setting may explain how the chemicals survived. On Earth, clay can trap and protect organic material from breaking down. The same process appears to have worked on Mars.

For NASA to run the experiment, Curiosity used a solvent called tetramethylammonium hydroxide, or TMAH, in methanol. The rover mixed the liquid with powdered rock, allowing its instruments to more easily spot certain carbon-based compounds. The powerful testing technique gives scientists a closer look at subtle hints of life that standard tests might miss.

Curiosity’s onboard lab has carried only two small containers of this chemical for its entire mission. The team recently used the second and final cup, as Mashable previously reported. Between the first test in 2020 and the second one this year, scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center redesigned the experiment into a three-stage process to better mirror lab techniques used on Earth.

"We're really excited about seeing the results," Vasavada told Mashable in February. "These are quite complex analyses to interpret and understand, so it will take a few months for the team to be confident in knowing what they've found."

We're now in the Moon's Waxing Gibbous phase, the last before we reach the Full Moon. There's plenty of its surface illuminated tonight, so keep reading to find out what you can see.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, April 25, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 63% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you're looking at the Moon with just your naked eye, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the Mares Crisium, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars, the Mare Nectaris, Posidonius Crater, and Apennine Mountains should also come into view, appearing from halfway up the Moon to near the top. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 16 landing spot, Rupes Altai, and Rima Hyginus.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We’ve now reached the First Quarter Moon, where roughly half of the visible surface is lit up. Keep reading to find out what you may be able to spot on its surface tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, April 24, the Moon phase is First Quarter. Tonight, 52% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you're looking at the Moon with just your naked eye, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the Mares Crisium, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars, the Mare Nectaris and Endymion and Posidonius Craters should also come into view, appearing from halfway up the Moon to near the top. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 16 landing spot, Rupes Altai, and Linne Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

We're almost at the First Quarter which means the Moon is almost half illuminated. Each night it gets a little brighter, and this will keep happening until the Full Moon when the reverse will then occur and each night it will appear less.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, April 23, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 41% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you're looking at the Moon with just your naked eye, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the Mares Serenitatis, Tranquillitatis, and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars, the Mare Nectaris and Endymion and Posidonius Craters should also come into view, appearing from halfway up the Moon to near the top. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 11 and 17 landing spots, and the Rupes Altai.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The Moon is showing more each night as we work through the lunar cycle. It's currently day give of the cycle, so it will keep appearing bigger and brighter until we reach the Full Moon in May.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, April 22, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 30% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you're looking at the Moon with just your naked eye, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. If you have binoculars, the Endymion and Posidonius Craters should come into view. And, finally, with a telescope you'll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA has completed its next space observatory, built to create sharp, panoramic maps of the universe while revealing how the most mysterious, invisible substances and distant worlds shape the cosmos.

About a quarter-century after the Hubble Telescope reshaped astronomy, and a few years into the era of the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will join them not as a replacement, but as a big-picture partner. Where Hubble and Webb zoom in for close‑ups, Roman will capture Hubble‑like detail across areas about 100 times larger, turning isolated snapshots into sweeping surveys that show the very scaffolding of the universe.

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, engineers are wrapping up prelaunch testing on the cutting-edge telescope. Next, the observatory will travel 900 miles to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where teams will prepare it for launch. 

That could happen as early as this September, about eight months ahead of schedule, NASA managers said at a news conference on Tuesday, April 21. Once in space, Roman will head to a stable orbit about 1 million miles from Earth, near the same region where Webb orbits the sun, and begin a years‑long campaign of deep space imaging. 

"We didn't want to wait to launch the Nancy Grace Roman. We're eight months ahead of schedule," said Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator of science. "Everybody felt the urgency. Everybody was sprinting towards this."

Named for Nancy Grace Roman, who became the agency's first chief of astronomy and one of its earliest female executives, the telescope reflects a legacy of opening new windows on the universe from above Earth's atmosphere. Nicknamed the "mother of Hubble," Roman helped lay the groundwork in the 1960s for a whole fleet of space telescopes.

A wide shot of the dark universe

At the heart of the mission is Roman's eight-foot-wide mirror, the same size as Hubble's, paired with a powerful camera that sees in infrared light, like Webb. That camera's field of view is Roman's superpower. In a single shot, it can image vast swaths of sky that Hubble simply can't match. 

Because a space telescope can only see one patch of sky at a time, it has to take many separate "pointings" — individual shots aimed at slightly different spots — and stitch them together into a mosaic.

In 2023, Ami Choi, an astrophysicist and scientist for Roman's wide field camera, contrasted the difference between Hubble and the new telescope. To photograph the Andromeda Galaxy, Hubble has to take 400 smaller images and stitch them together. For Roman's camera, that should only take two pointings, she said. 

This wide, sharp vision is what scientists need to study the so-called "dark universe." Ordinary matter — the stuff that makes up stars, planets, and even people — accounts for only about 5 percent of the cosmos. The bulk of it is dark matter and dark energy, which do not emit light but leave clues where they've influenced space's expansion and the arrangement of galaxies.

"Current observations hint that our standard model of the universe is incorrect," said Julie McEnery, senior project scientist, referring to cosmologists' best recipe for the universe. "Roman will be able to confirm these and set us on the path to understanding what's right."

Roman will trace those clues in several ways at once. By mapping the positions and shapes of hundreds of millions of galaxies, it will show how structures have grown from the early universe to today. Subtle distortions in galaxy shapes will reveal how clumps of invisible space stuff bend their light on the way to us, exposing the hidden dark matter. At the same time, Roman will discover and track large numbers of a special kind of exploding star, known as Type Ia supernovas; their predictable brightness lets astronomers measure how quickly space has expanded over time.

Imaging large space targets, such as the Andromeda Galaxy, will require far fewer smaller images to stitch together than other flagship observatories. Credit: NASA composite image

Taken together, these measurements will allow scientists to test competing ideas about dark matter, dark energy, and even the laws of gravity themselves with far greater precision than ever before. Other observatories can make similar kinds of measurements, but none combines Roman's sharpness and sky coverage in the infrared, NASA mission leaders say, which lets it see more distant and dust-covered galaxies.

A new census of distant exoplanets

Roman's wide‑field power also makes it skilled at exoplanet hunting. Previous missions like Kepler and TESS mostly found planets close to their stars, where their repeated crossings dim starlight in a regular rhythm. Roman will focus on a different region of planetary systems: the cooler, outer zones, where worlds similar to Jupiter and Saturn reside. It may even find wandering planets that aren't tethered to stars.

To do this, Roman will repeatedly monitor dense star fields toward the center of our Milky Way. As a foreground star passes in front of a more distant one, its gravity will briefly magnify the background star's light. If the foreground star carries planets, they can produce smaller, telltale blips in that brightening. This technique, called microlensing, works best in precisely the kind of crowded, faint, and distant regions that Roman is expected to capture.

Optical Engineer Bente Eegholm inspects the primary mirror for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Credit: NASA / Chris Gunn

Over its mission, Roman will attempt to record thousands of these microlensing events, revealing planets at distances and masses other surveys mostly miss. From that haul, astronomers will compare our solar system's architecture with many others and judge whether having inner rocky worlds and outer giant planets is the status quo or something more rare.

Roman will also test an advanced coronagraph — a system of masks and mirrors that blocks a star's glare so the telescope can try to see the faint glow of planets around it. On Roman, this is more of a technology trial than an everyday science instrument, but if it works, it will set the stage for a future observatory whose main goal is to directly image Earth‑like worlds around other sun‑like stars.

"What astronomers can do today with coronagraph instruments is see planets that are maybe a million times fainter than their stars," Vanessa Bailey, NASA's Roman coronagraph scientist, told Mashable. "What we're doing with the Roman coronagraph is hopefully getting to 10 million to 100 million times fainter, maybe even a little bit more, in the best case scenario."

Catching the universe in motion

Roman is also built for studying how the sky changes, creating a veritable library of "before" and "after" shots.

Technicians assemble the solar panels on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Credit: NASA / Sydney Rohde

One of its major surveys will repeatedly scan high‑latitude regions of the sky, away from the plane of the Milky Way. By returning to the same fields every few days, Roman will catch supernovas as they ignite and fade, watch black holes light up as they feed on nearby material, and uncover other short-lived, dramatic events across the distant universe. Its infrared vision will reveal explosions and flares that dust clouds hide from visible‑light telescopes.

Another core program will stare toward the Milky Way's central bulge. There, Roman will track how the brightness of millions of stars rises and falls on timescales of minutes to months. Those records will not only power the microlensing planet search but also expose other phenomena, such as neutron stars and black holes.

Because Roman will cover such large areas with fine detail, its images will also become a long‑lasting reference tool. When other telescopes later spot something odd — a burst of high‑energy radiation, for instance, or an unusual variable star — astronomers will be able to pull Roman's earlier images and see what was there before the excitement.

"The images it captures will be so large there is not a screen in existence large enough to show them," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. "Roman will give the Earth a new Atlas of the universe. I think it's worth pausing for a moment just to think about how really incredible that is."

UPDATE: Apr. 22, 2026, 12:59 p.m. EDT A previous version of this story identified an astrophysicist as Julie McHenry. The senior project scientist is Julie McEnery.

As we hit day four of the lunar cycle, the Moon is starting to appear more illuminated. Keep reading to find out what you can spot tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, April 21, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 20% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

If you're looking at the Moon with just your naked eye, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. If you have either binoculars or a telescope, you'll see these as well as the Endymion Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in about 29.5 days, during which it passes through eight stages. Although the same face of the Moon is always turned toward us, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its path, producing the familiar cycle of full, half, and crescent shapes. These variations are referred to as lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The staggering visuals from the Artemis II mission just keep coming.

On Sunday, Commander Reid Wiseman shared an extraordinary video he shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max from inside NASA's Orion spacecraft, and it's a stunner.

"Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset," Wiseman wrote in an X post. The moment when Earth appears to sink below the moon's horizon, Earthset was captured by the Artemis II crew from Orion on April 6, 2026, during the historic lunar flyby.

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"I could barely see the Moon through the docking hatch window but the iPhone was the perfect size to catch the view," Wiseman added.

For this "uncropped, uncut" video, the commander used an iPhone 17 Pro Max, which has a 48 megapixel triple rear camera array with 8x optical-quality zoom (which Apple claims is "the longest iPhone Telephoto ever"). When Mashable's Stan Schroeder reviewed the iPhone 17 Pro Max, he praised the zoom as "not just a parlor trick" and recommended "you should use the zoom feature on this phone, and use it often." Turns out shooting Earthset from space was an optimal opportunity to put said zoom to the test, one few of us will ever get.

Latest model iPhones aren't the only gadgets the Artemis II team had onboard. The shutter sound you can hear in the video, Wiseman noted, is mission specialist Christina Koch snapping away with her Nikon D5 (7731.T) camera, ​a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) model with a 400-millimetre lens, using three-shot bracketing (triggering rapid automatic shots to capture the same image multiple times). Two Nikon cameras (the D5 and a Z9), alongside four modified GoPros (reportedly Hero 11s), allowed the astronauts to document the visual delights of their mission.

Koch's resulting Earthset images, just like Wiseman's video, are nothing short of marvellous — as NASA writes, "is reminiscent of the iconic Earthrise image taken by astronaut Bill Anders 58 years earlier as the Apollo 8 crew flew around the Moon."

Earthset, captured Apr. 6, 2026, by Christina Koch. Credit: NASA

Where were the other two Artemis II astronauts during this glorious Earthset? Reid said pilot Victor Glover "was in window 3 watching," with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen "next to him." As Mashable space reporter Elisha Sauers explains, "They spent about seven hours rotating through observation shifts on the sixth day of the mission, swapping lenses, calling out features, and firing off photos as the spacecraft arced around the far side of the moon."

The historic Artemis II mission has seen the internet fiercely glued to their social media feeds, with the crew beaming home content during the 10-day flight around the moon. Just because they're back on Earth doesn't mean the content stops.

We're well and truly in the new lunar cycle, and after nights of no joy, keen moon gazers can finally spot some surface features again tonight. Keep reading to find out what you can spot on the Moon tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, April 20, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 11% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Visual aids or not, tonight you're in luck. If you're looking up at the Moon with just your naked eye, expect to catch a glimpse of the Mares Crisium and Fecunditatis. If you have either binoculars or a telescope, you'll see these as well as the Endymion Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA says the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to orbit Earth, going through eight distinct phases along the way. We always see the same side, but the part lit by the Sun changes as it moves around its orbit, creating the familiar sequence of full, partial, and crescent shapes. These changing appearances are known as lunar phases. There are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

After days of almost (and complete) darkness, the Moon is finally starting to reappear. We're currently in the Waxing Crescent phase of the lunar cycle, which means each night until the Full Moon we'll see it get more illuminated from the right side.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Sunday, April 19, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 5% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Despite more of it now being illuminated, the percentage of surface is still too little to be able to spot any surface details. Check again tomorrow.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA states that the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit Earth, during which it passes through eight distinct phases. We always see the same side of the Moon, but the amount of sunlight reflecting off it changes as it moves along its orbit, creating the familiar pattern of full, partial, and crescent shapes. We call these the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The New Moon has now passed, which means each night the Moon will appear bigger and brighter in the sky. This happens as more of its sunlit side comes into view from Earth. From now, it will become more illuminated each night until the next full Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Saturday, April 18, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 1% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

The Moon is starting to brighten again, but for now, there's still to little of its surface lit up to see anything.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA states that the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit Earth, during which it passes through eight distinct phases. We always see the same side of the Moon, but the amount of sunlight reflecting off it changes as it moves along its orbit, creating the familiar pattern of full, partial, and crescent shapes. These shifting appearances are called lunar phases, and there are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

NASA’s Artemis II mission has safely concluded with a perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The Orion capsule returned astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA’s Jeremy Hansen after a historic lunar flyby. The crew traveled farther into space than any previous human mission, advancing space exploration.

It's the last day of the lunar cycle, a roughly 29.5-day period in which the Moon orbits Earth, which means today is the New Moon. This is the point where the Moon sits between Earth and the Sun, so its sunlit side is facing away from us.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, April 17, the Moon phase is New Moon. Tonight, 0% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Unsurprisingly, with 0% of the moon illuminated, there's nothing for us to see tonight.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA states that the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit Earth, during which it passes through eight distinct phases. We always see the same side of the Moon, but the amount of sunlight reflecting off it changes as it moves along its orbit, creating the familiar pattern of full, partial, and crescent shapes. These shifting appearances are called lunar phases, and there are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Astronauts from NASA's first crewed Artemis flight largely sidestepped a question about the diversity of the future astronauts assigned to the upcoming moon-landing mission. 

Speaking at a news conference days after their return to Earth, the Artemis II astronauts —  Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — were asked whether the U.S. space agency should uphold its pledge to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon, a goal NASA has recently deemphasized. 

The moment highlighted an issue NASA has avoided publicly clarifying. The Artemis program's first landing mission is expected as early as 2028.

"That's a great question," Koch told Mashable. "Our understanding of that statement was basically that the Artemis campaign as a whole will usher in an era where that is true, and that it will happen naturally because of our astronaut corps."

Though Mashable sought each astronaut's opinion, only Koch answered before the moderator moved on to another reporter's question.

Before 2025, NASA had consistently described the first Artemis lunar landing as putting the first woman and first person of color on the moon. But over the past year, that language has largely disappeared from agency materials, following a White House executive order that curtailed diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across federal agencies. The directive labeled such programs "illegal and immoral."

The Artemis II crew itself marked a milestone. The mission was the first deep-space flight not composed entirely of white men. Koch became the first woman and Glover the first Black person to travel beyond low-Earth orbit. Their assignment to the lunar flyby crew occurred in 2023, during President Joe Biden's administration. 

The Artemis II crew, clockwise: Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Reid Wiseman. Credit: Josh Valcarcel

Both have downplayed the historical significance of their distinctions in past interviews, focusing instead on the technical goals of the mission. Leading up to the launch, they often wouldn't elaborate on what those "firsts" meant specifically for women and people of color.

On Thursday, however, Koch seemed confident the milestone will happen, regardless of intention.

"The fact is we don't have to try too hard to make that come true, to make that be the reality of this mission," she said. "We actually have to try harder to not make that true in the astronaut corps that we have."

Floating in the Orion spacecraft, the four Artemis II astronauts embrace in weightlessness. Credit: NASA

Artemis II, a roughly 10-day mission around the moon and back, was NASA's first crewed journey beyond low-Earth orbit in more than a half-century. The $4.1 billion test flight vetted the Orion spacecraft's life‑support, power, navigation, and steering systems. The mission took the capsule past Apollo‑era distances, reaching a farthest point of about 252,756 miles. 

NASA has not yet announced crews beyond Artemis II. The next mission, Artemis III, will serve as a 2027 flight demonstration for docking Orion with commercially built lunar landers while in low-Earth orbit. Artemis IV is expected to attempt the program's first lunar landing the following year. 

Agency officials have said assignments will be based on mission needs but have not addressed whether earlier commitments about representation remain in place.

The New Moon is fast approaching, meaning the Moon will be barely visible for the next few nights. This is to due with the lunar cycle, a roughly 29.5-day period in which the Moon orbits Earth and changes how much of its sunlit side we can see.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, April 16, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 2% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Although part of the Moon is still visible, the illuminated portion is too small to make out any surface details tonight.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases in the process. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the portion lit by the Sun changes as it travels, creating the familiar cycle of full, partial, and crescent shapes. These changing views are known as the lunar phases, and there are eight:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The New Moon is just around the corner, and over the next few nights the Moon will be almost invisible. For keen Moon gazers, this means less, if anything, to spot on its surface. Keep reading to see what's happening tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, April 15, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 7% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Despite still some Moon on display, the percentage illuminated it too low to be able to spot any features on its surface.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

NASA explains that the Moon takes around 29.5 days to complete a full orbit around Earth, moving through eight distinct phases in the process. Although we always see the same side of the Moon, the portion lit by the Sun changes as it travels, creating the familiar cycle of full, partial, and crescent shapes. These changing views are known as the lunar phases, and there are eight:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

When people watched NASA's Artemis II mission return to Earth, they saw helicopter views of little orange-clad figures exiting the spacecraft onto a raft. 

But the U.S. space agency has since released a short closeup video of the Navy recovery team as it opened the hatch on Friday, April 10. The trained divers and medical officers entered the tiny 330 cubic-foot Orion capsule, greeted the four astronauts. 

From video cameras mounted on the recovery team's helmets, shown in the X post below, it's as if you're right there with them. The team cheers and claps, with shouts of "let's go!" followed by "four green" (a callout that the crew was OK). 

"Welcome home," the recovery team said to the Artemis II crew, Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, the first humans to fly around the moon since 1972. 

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Up close, the spacecraft, dubbed Integrity by the crew, appeared battered and singed as it bobbed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California. The capsule had just plummeted through Earth's atmosphere, a fiery descent that put the crew through a 25,000 mph ride. 

During that intense and dangerous phase, the astronauts experienced nearly 4Gs, a pressure pushing against them equal to four times their bodyweight. Without proper training, those conditions, coupled with adrenaline overload, could cause a person to blackout. 

But as the recovery team soon discovered, not only was the returning crew healthy, they were in high spirits, smiling as they waited through the procedures to leave the spacecraft. At the end of the video, one of the recovery officials, referred to as "Vlad," said he had something for Wiseman. The clip ends before that "something" is revealed. 

"Jesse, Steve, Laddy, and Vlad….such an incredible feeling to welcome you aboard Integrity after a nearly 700,000 mile journey," Wiseman said in a post on X. "Forever thankful for your service to our crew and the nation."

What is clear is that the people who welcomed Artemis II back to Earth seemed just as exhilarated as the astronauts themselves. Before climbing inside the crew's living quarters for the 10-day journey, the team almost forgot to place the seal cover over the bottom edge of the hatch in their haste to see their friends. 

Artemis II, which launched April 1, marked NASA's triumphant return of human-led space exploration. It planned the voyage as the critical shakeout cruise for the spacecraft before the agency attempts to land on the moon. During the flight, the Artemis II crew put Orion through its paces, testing everything from propulsion and communications to how well humans can live, work, and make scientific observations far from home.

The day after Artemis II's splashdown, Commander Reid Wiseman visits the Orion spacecraft in the well deck of USS John P. Murtha. Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls

Packed with cameras, sensors, and experiments, the mission turned the crew into both test pilots and test subjects, gathering data to shape future Artemis voyages. A successful journey vets the hardware and flight controllers for a moonwalk planned for 2028. 

NASA isn't just motivated to get back to the moon for the moon's sake but to practice keeping humans alive in another world for extended periods. That's crucial before sending astronauts on a months-long spaceflight to Mars, perhaps possible in the late 2030s. 

A new space race also sets the timeline for the Artemis campaign. The United States wants to land on the moon again before China, which is extremely close to achieving its first human moon landing. 

If you thought the splashdown meant Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen could finally relax, you'd be wrong. Just hours after landing, NASA tested the crew's mettle again with an obstacle course. 

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When 10-year-old Kaela Polkinghorn asked NASA to make Pluto a planet again, she never expected the agency's top official to respond. 

The fourth grader from Tampa, Florida, fell for Pluto during a field trip last week to the Museum of Science & Innovation, known as MOSI. In its giant dome theater, she watched a film that showed eight planets huddled cozily around the sun. But Pluto was not included in the group hug, crying from way in the back. 

"It's very small, and it's so cute," Kaela told Mashable, "like a little baby." 

That image tugged at her heartstrings. Later, Kaela sat down with some of her Plato Academy Tampa classmates and wrote a letter asking NASA to give Pluto its planet status back. Kaela's mother, Brandy Polkinghorn, found the note.

Pluto's place in the solar system has stirred strong feelings ever since 2006, when the International Astronomical Union — the global body that sets the nomenclature for planetary objects — voted to reclassify it as a "dwarf planet." Under the organization's rules, a planet must be round and also "clear its neighborhood," meaning it dominates its orbit. Because Pluto did not meet that last criteria, the change cut the official list of planets from nine to eight, turning Pluto into a symbol of scientific debate.

Why Pluto has been such a touchy subject speaks to both nostalgia and national pride. Many people fondly remember learning acrostics, like My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, for the nine planets of the solar system. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto from the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, a historic moment for the grandparents of millennials and Generation X. Arizona's attachment to Pluto even led Gov. Katie Hobbs to declare the icy world the official state planet in 2024. 

At first, Kaela's letter was only meant for NASA's mailbox. Brandy and her husband, David Polkinghorn, both space and science fans, talked about where to send it. Then they showed it to a family friend, Mike Boylan, a Tampa-based weather personality with a large online following.

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"He had a hunch that maybe something would happen from it," Polkinghorn said.

Once Boylan posted it publicly, things moved fast. Within hours, the NASA administrator replied to a photo of the letter on X. 

"Kaela — " Jared Isaacman wrote on April 9, just as the Artemis II moon mission was on its way back to Earth, "We are looking into this." 

NASA cannot overturn the International Astronomical Union's decision on its own. But what the agency chooses to say about Pluto still matters, said Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, who has published two papers on the debate. Some scientists argue that Pluto counts as a planet because of its complex surface and active geology, even if it shares its region of space with many other icy bodies. If it's scientifically useful for researchers to call it a planet, then they should, he says.

"NASA can help contribute to consensus that the IAU definition was inappropriate," Metzger told Mashable in an email, "so it actually could be quite helpful for the administrator to take this on."

Kaela Polkinghorn felt inspired to write a letter to NASA about Pluto following a field trip to the Museum of Science & Innovation in Tampa, Florida. Credit: Brandy Polkinghorn

The IAU has not heard from NASA or administrator Isaacman about Pluto, a spokesperson confirmed, while adding that the organization understands how emotional that 2006 decision remains. 

"Scientific classifications are determined through international consensus and evidence-based processes," the organization said in a statement to Mashable. "While they are not subject to unilateral change, they can be amended if the supporting evidence changes."

But Isaacman's comments weren't a joke. NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens pointed to a Daily Mail article in March, in which the administrator said he fully supports restoring Pluto's previous status as a planet. 

For Kaela, the arguments take a simple form. She loves that Pluto is small and that photos from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft show a bright heart-shaped region on its surface. 

Science has long been part of Kaela's upbringing. Before she was born, one of her parents' first dates was at MOSI in 2004. The family can sometimes watch space launches from their neighborhood; they even saw the recent Artemis II launch light up the sky. Kaela's younger brother, Austin Polkinghorn, is a big Elon Musk fan. And Kaela is daydreaming about her future career.

Kaela Polkinghorn, left, and her friend Zoey Mead want Pluto to be a planet again. Credit: Brandy Polkinghorn

"I want to fly in a rocket," she said. 

Where does she want to go? Why, Pluto, of course.

Underneath her planetary plea is a desire for fairness. That core principle runs deep, evident in her request to include in this story the name of her friend, Zoey Mead, whom she credits as "the person who helped me most" with the letter. 

Whatever happens next with Pluto's label, one handwritten note from a 10-year-old has already accomplished something remarkable: It pushed a scientific debate from an elementary school field trip all the way to NASA's top brass.

We’re only a few days from the New Moon, so very little of the Moon is visible tonight. This marks the end of the current lunar cycle, which lasts about 29.5 days as the Moon completes its orbit around Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Tuesday, April 14, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 13% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There's less to see on the Moon's surface than previous nights, with only the Grimaldi Basin visible, and only with visual aids such as binoculars or a telescope.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, it takes the Moon roughly 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through eight distinct stages during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves, which is why it can look full, partly lit, or just a slim crescent. These shifting appearances are known as the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

In this side-by-side portrait, a craggy gray moon dwarfs the blue crescent Earth, revealing our world as distant and isolated in the vastness of space. 

But that loneliness fades with perspective. More than 8 billion people are looking back from that tiny place in the universe — figuratively speaking, of course.

Commander Reid Wiseman took this photo on Monday, April 6, from inside NASA's Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II mission. With the moon out one window and Earth out the next, he used a 14-24-millimeter, wide-angle lens to capture the rare view. 

"I didn't know it got downlinked!" the astronaut wrote in an X post on Saturday. "AMAZING!"

What makes this single shot unusual — and historic — is not just the geometry and composition, but the people behind it. At the time, the capsule was closing in on the lunar far side. Unlike most famous Earth‑moon pairings, this one came from a human eye and human hand, not a robotic probe. In an age when our use of artificial intelligence is accelerating, the photo stands as a quiet testament to the power — and enduring impact — of human-led exploration.

Artemis II sent Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on the first journey around the moon in over a half-century. They launched April 1 on NASA's Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, their Orion capsule hurled into space on 8.8 million pounds of thrust. Once in orbit, the crew and flight controllers spent their first day checking out Orion's systems, making sure everything worked before committing to the moon-bound trip.

On the second day, the spacecraft's service module fired its main engine and nudged the crew onto a trajectory that would carry them out to a record distance of 252,756 miles from Earth. At their closest approach, they swung 4,067 miles above the lunar surface. Over nearly 10 days, the astronauts traveled 694,481 miles before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, California, on April 10.

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"What struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it," said Koch to an auditorium full of NASA colleagues the next day in Houston. "Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe."

Artemis II was, at its core, a test flight. For the first time, engineers could see how Orion's life-support systems handled real people in deep space. The crew briefly took manual control to steer the spacecraft, gathering data that future astronauts will rely on when they need to dock with lunar landers. They also supported experiments on how human tissue and performance respond to weightlessness and the radiation environment beyond Earth's protective magnetic field — practical homework for living and working on another world.

But for everyone watching back home, the Artemis II crew's images were the spacecraft window. The Earth-moon portrait was just one of about 7,000 the astronauts snapped that day. They documented earthrise and earthset peeking beyond the lunar edge, impact craters and ancient lava flows, the hazy halo of the sun's corona during their far-side solar eclipse, and the jagged line of the lunar terminator — that shifting boundary between the lit and shadowed parts of the moon. Those stark lighting conditions are a sneak preview of what astronauts will see near the moon's south pole when NASA aims to land a crew there in 2028.

This single frame of a big moon and a small Earth joins a collection of portraits that space missions have snapped for decades. Voyager 1's view in 1977 showed Earth and the moon as tiny neighbors from millions of miles away. Galileo's 1992 Earth‑moon conjunction showed the Earth skulking in the background. China's Chang'e‑5 T1 spacecraft and NOAA's DSCOVR probe later caught dramatic scenes of the moon crossing or looming in front of home.

From left, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman return to Houston on Saturday, April 11, 2026. Credit: NASA / John Kraus

Yet something about this Artemis II image just "hits different." It comes not from an uncrewed probe, glancing back on its way to somewhere else, but from a capsule built to carry people. The same windows that framed these two worlds also framed four astronauts, who traveled farther than any humans have gone before.

"This was not easy, being 200,000-plus miles away from home," Wiseman said. "Before you launch, it feels like it's the greatest dream on Earth, and when you're out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends. It's a special thing to be a human, and it's a special thing to be on planet Earth." 

In Wiseman's photo, the distance between those two worlds collapses into a few inches — and, at the same time, sprawls in one's imagination. The moon looks close enough to touch. Earth becomes the profound and wondrous beacon in the dark.

On a stage at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, Hansen asked his three crewmates to rise from their seats next to him. With arms around each other, he called the crew a mirror reflecting all of humanity.

"If you like what you see, then just look a little deeper," he said. "This is you."

We're just a few days away from the New Moon, so there's not much of the Moon illuminated tonight. This means we're approaching the end of the current lunar cycle, which spans about 29.5 days as the Moon orbits Earth.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Monday, April 13, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. Tonight, 21% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There's less to see on the Moon's surface than previous nights. This will continue to decrease until we pass the New Moon. Tonight, with just your naked eye, you'll only be able to spot the Aristarchus Plateau. With binoculars or a telescope, you'll be able to see this plus the Grimaldi Basin.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, it takes the Moon roughly 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through eight distinct stages during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves, which is why it can look full, partly lit, or just a slim crescent. These shifting appearances are known as the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

The world woke up to phenomenal news: All four astronauts who participated in NASA's ten-day Artemis II mission to fly around the moon, taking them farther into space than any humans had ever been before, have returned safely to earth, splashing down within a mile of their intended landing target in the Pacific Ocean, according to NASA.

The reentry 

The first major point of anxiety came with reentry into Earth's atmosphere, which CNN described as the riskiest part of the mission.

In a pre-landing blog post, NASA reporters Abby Graf and Joseph Zakrzewski described the challenges of reentry, beginning with the structural integrity of the ship itself.

Traveling more than 24,000 miles per hour (40,000 km/h), the spaceship compresses the air in front of it, creating a plasma fireball with temperatures of up to 2,700 Celsius or 4,892 Fahrenheit, roughly half the surface temperature of our sun.

Meanwhile, inside the ship, crew members experience the rapid deceleration as a huge increase in gravitational force, making them feel almost four times heavier than they would on the Earth's surface, according to former astronaut Chris Hadfield.

The NASA livestream of the Artemis II return, watched by more than 20 million people worldwide, reached peak tension during reentry, when for six whole minutes the extreme temperatures made all communication with the crew impossible, leaving not only mission control but also viewers holding their breath. 

It was Commander Reid Wiseman's voice that broke the silence: "Houston, Integrity here. We hear you loud and clear," BBC reported.

The splashdown: Where did Artemis land?

After communication was reestablished and the cheers of the NASA crews died down, all that was left was to stick the landing: 2,000 miles southwest of the coast of San Diego, in the Pacific Ocean. 

To slow the craft down and ensure a safe landing, the Orion landing capsule used a series of parachutes of four different designs, deployed in an extremely precise sequence for maximum effectiveness, described in this NASA brochure.

When the final parachutes were used, the tiny capsule containing the crew had slowed down exponentially, ending in a gentle descent to the ocean waters, captured by CNN.

Splashdown occurred shortly after 5 p.m. PT, hailed as a "perfect bull's eye splashdown for Integrity and its four astronauts" by NASA commentator Rob Navias, while a naval rescue mission extracted the four astronauts from the floating capsule before flying them by helicopter to the USS John P Murtha for medical evaluation, according to official NASA reporting by Jennifer M. Dooren. 

How to watch Artemis II

Interested in re-living the dramatic trip, or maybe you missed most of the action and want to see it for the first time? You can watch comprehensive coverage of the entire mission, including interviews with the crew, on NASA's official YouTube page.

For maximum drama, though, see the taped livestream below.

Or if you don't have multiple hours of free time to spare, check out our photo summary of the splashdown compiled by Chris Taylor.

What's next after Artemis II

The success of this mission, as well as its undeniable worldwide appeal, has both NASA and other space agencies thinking of the stars, but there are practical matters to attend to first.

The crew, described from the recovery ship by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman as "ambassadors for humanity," had not made as of this morning any public appearance since cameras captured their dramatic capsule exit, and are expected to take many days to recover from their 10-day trip beyond our atmosphere.

Before the R&R, though, the astronauts were expected to undergo one more ordeal: an obstacle course. As Mashable reporter Elisha Sauers details, the battery of tests, conducted in and out of their heavy astronaut suits, will be used study the body's adaptation to prolonged weightlessness.

But what about the future of space travel?

For some perspective, the Artemis II mission was the first crewed mission into deep space in more than 50 years, but NASA is also viewing it as a first step on a new, multi-decade project to establish a firmer foothold in space.

According to NASA writer Lauren E. Low, future plans include landing humans on the moon and establishing a permanent lunar base, testing rendezvous and docking capabilities with both SpaceX and Blue Origin lunar landers sometime in 2027, and eventually establishing the necessary preconditions for a crewed mission to Mars. 

For now, however, the world is breathing a collective sigh of relief, happy to accept the good news of the crews' safe return.

Reporting by Mashable's Elisha Sauers and Chris Taylor contributed to this article.

To humanity's relief, the Artemis II astronauts returned safely to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific ocean just off the California coast Friday evening. And it looked every bit as iconic as those Apollo splashdowns from the 1960s and 1970s.

Credit: Bill Ingalls / NASA

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As thrilling as the splashdown was, equally thrilling was video of the crew module separating from the service module a half hour before the spacecraft returned.

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Celebrations broke out at the nearby Air and Space Museum in San Diego, where one space-loving child gave us what may be the most relatable raised fist since Success Kid.

Credit: Apu GOMES / AFP via Getty Images

Celebrations also broke out several hundred miles north at the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, California — where the descent was a nerve-wracking reminder of the lost Space Shuttle that the center is named for.

Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

However, there followed a wait of more than an hour — longer than expected — while the crew awaited the inflation of a hexagonal raft called a "front porch". That would attach to a "stabilizing collar" around the capsule.

Credit: NASA screenshot

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After a significant delay, the astronauts all found themselves extracted and on the front porch — snug with a sizeable extraction team. The hexagon then floated free, awaiting astronaut extraction via helicopter.

Credit: NASA screenshot

The Artemis II Commander, Reid Wiseman, was the last to be airlifted from the floating hexagon.

Credit: Joel Kowsky / NASA

Finally, the helicopters returned with the astronauts to the deck of the USS John P Murtha — where Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch and pilot Vic Glover spotted the livestream camera, cheered and waved to viewers around the world.

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The NASA spacecraft carrying the four astronauts of Artemis II — Commander Reid Wiseman, 50, pilot Victor Glover, 49, Christina Koch, 47, and Jeremy Hansen, 50 — splashed down as planned off the coast of San Diego, California at 5:07pm Pacific time, in perfect weather. 

The safe return of the crew module, known during descent as Integrity, followed a nerve-wracking set of maneuvers during the mission's final half hour. 

Integrity had to separate from its service module, reorient itself for a "raise burn" that assisted reentry, and then had to weather an expected communications blackout of exactly six minutes as it reentered Earth's atmosphere.

Finally, a series of hair-raising parachute deployments concluded with the reveal of three iconic red and white parachutes.

On reaching the Pacific, the crew were reported as "green" — meaning all OK — and balloons deployed to help keep it afloat while Integrity powered down. The only snag, apparently, was was a non-working satellite phone.  

The astronauts remained in good spirits throughout the process, and had plenty of time to look around on the way down — and back up again.  

"The moon looks smaller than it did yesterday," Commander Wiseman noted to mission control some 23 minutes before splashdown. 

"Guess we'll just have to go back, then," responded Artemis II Chief Training Officer Jacki Mahaffey.  

The successful trip, which in looping around the moon went further from Earth than any humans have ever gone, was intended to prepare the hardware and the flight controllers for a moon landing in 2028, the first in more than a half-century. 

NASA also aims to use the moon to practice keeping humans alive in another world for extended periods before going to Mars. The U.S. also has an interest in landing on the moon again before China, which is close to achieving its own first human moon landing. 

Watch splashdown below, starting at about the 1 hour, 35 minute mark:

Elisha Sauers contributed to this report.

"Fetch" is never going to happen. But "moon joy" just might.

NASA began using the phrase "moon joy" all over its social media accounts as the Artemis II crew approached the moon this week. Now the agency has gone all in with a definition on the official NASA account on X, along with the ideal photo — its lunar adventurers looking adorably like the first fourple in space — leading into a video of moon joy moments.

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"The feeling of intense happiness and excitement that only comes from a mission to the moon" is how NASA defines moon joy (which sounds to us like it should be one word, but we'll wait for an official ruling from the AP Stylebook).

The phrase has been used several times throughout the Artemis II mission. The first use NASA posted was on Sunday, April 5: a clip of the mission control communicator calmly replying to a litany of excited identification of lunar locations from astronaut Reid Wiseman aboard Orion.

"Copy," mission control says with a chuckle. "Moon joy."

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One commenter on X called the phrase "the most perfectly understated response to astronauts losing their minds over seeing the moon up close for the first time." (Which calls to mind this classic 1969 moon landing story from the Onion — featuring a mission control transcript that seems closer to how the Apollo team would have expressed its moon joy if they hadn't been so professionally understated.)

NASA knew a good meme when it saw one. When the astronauts were woken up on Monday, mission control told them, "Our room is buzzing with moon joy." When the Artemis II astronauts viewed a solar eclipse that same day, it also qualified as moon joy — because the eclipse was one only they could see.

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Moon joy is infectious, it turns out — even reaching the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, according to a live NASA broadcast of a ship-to-ship call between Orion and the ISS.

"We can tell that you guys are definitely experiencing moon joy," Jessica Meir, commander of the ISS Crew-12 mission, told the Artemis II crew, "and I feel like even we are experiencing moon joy right now."

The ISS's moon joy manifested, according to Meir, in a particularly nerdy jape.

At the moment Orion set the new record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth on Monday, her crew went to the far end of the station to claim that they were the farthest humans away from them at that moment — presumably since the ISS happened to be on the opposite side of the Earth at the time.

Even Rise, the official Artemis II mission mascot, got in on the moon joy meme on Wednesday, turning in the perfect made-for-Hollywood cute character catchphrase.

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Of course, NASA couldn't make moon joy happen all on its own. Luckily, back on Earth, moon joy is already a thing — because ironically, and unlike fetch in Mean Girls, it's not happening in a vacuum.

We noted the unusually unified, unabashedly earnest reactions to last week's Artemis II launch. That sense of wonder and delight has only grown, and #moonjoy has become the positive hashtag for an otherwise uniformly terrible year.

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How long moon joy lasts, and whether it stays with us for NASA's planned moon landing in 2028, is anyone's guess. But this week at least, it was a real and global thing — and that is, in itself, pretty fetch.

Elisha Sauers contributed to this report.

After 10 days circling the Earth, the moon, and breaking records in deep space, the Artemis II crew is about to make one final, fiery plunge back to Earth.

This four-person crew made history on April 6, when Orion reached 248,655 miles from Earth, the farthest any human has ever traveled in space, surpassing Apollo 13's record. Now, U.S. Navy teams stationed near San Diego are ready to bring them safely home.

If you don't want to miss the Artemis II return, then tune in to the NASA livestream on Friday. That's when Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen are expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at approximately 5:07 p.m. PT (8:07 p.m. ET).

You have tons of options for watching the livestream, and even streamers like Prime Video and Netflix are getting in on the action. However, YouTube is probably your best bet.

When to start watching

NASA+ coverage kicks off at 3:30 p.m. PT, about 90 minutes before splashdown. But the action really heats up, literally, around 4:53 p.m. PT, when the Orion spacecraft hits entry interface, and the capsule begins its scorching journey through Earth's atmosphere, where it will reach roughly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

After the Artemis II recovery, NASA will hold a post-splashdown news conference at 7:30 p.m. PT at Johnson Space Center.

How to watch Artemis II reentry

You can stream the Artemis II return free on NASA+ at plus.nasa.gov or on NASA's YouTube channel. NASA has also been providing continuous coverage of Artemis II throughout the 10-day mission, including real-time commentary. A separate livestream of the splashdown will start up at 3:30 p.m. PT (6:30 p.m. ET).

More ways to watch live

If you'd rather watch the conclusion of the mission live on your TV without downloading any new apps, several streaming services you probably already have will be livestreaming the landing.

Prime Video, as well as Netflix, Peacock, HBO Max, and Apple TV will all host the NASA stream on their platforms, beginning at 3:30 p.m. PT.

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It's the Third Quarter tonight, which means we're exactly halfway in between the Full Moon and the New Moon. This is part of the Moon's roughly 29.5 day cycle that sees it move through eight different phases. Keep reading to see what that means for tonight's Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Friday, April 10, the Moon phase is Third Quarter. Tonight, 49% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

Tonight, without any visual aids, you should be able to see the Oceanus Procellarum, Tycho Crater, and the Copernicus Crater. With binoculars, you'll also be able to see the Grimaldi Basin, the Mare Humorum, and the Clavius Crater. Finally, if you have a telescope, expect to see features like the Schiller Crater and the Fra Mauro Highlands.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, it takes the Moon roughly 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through eight distinct stages during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves, which is why it can look full, partly lit, or just a slim crescent. These shifting appearances are known as the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Orion will slam into Earth's atmosphere at more than 30 times the speed of sound, in what NASA expects to be the most demanding part of the Artemis II moon mission. 

On landing day, Artemis II entry flight director Rick Henfling and his team in mission control will run the final leg home of the 10-day spaceflight. After wake‑up, controllers will brief the four astronauts — Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — on weather at the splashdown zone, then clear them to secure loose gear and climb into their pressure suits. 

A small final steering burn in space will aim the Orion spacecraft at a targeted patch of the Pacific Ocean, west of San Diego, California, where a Navy ship will be waiting Friday evening. On the ground, engineers will also arm backup flight software so the capsule can still guide itself through the atmosphere if its main computers fail.

This home stretch carries extra tension following Artemis I, when pieces of Orion's heat shield unexpectedly broke off during the uncrewed test flight’s descent. Engineers later attributed the problem to hot gas building up faster than it could escape during that mission's so-called "skip" entry. But rather than redesign the shield, NASA chose to change the capsule's path through the atmosphere to avoid the hottest temperatures. 

Long before launch, the heat shield was Wiseman's top concern for Jim Free, who led NASA's Artemis rocket and spacecraft programs in 2023. 

"Every time you see me come in, you take a step back," Wiseman told Free at a news conference, "because I'm coming about the heat shield." 

After NASA recovered the Orion spacecraft following Artemis I, engineers stripped the heat shield off the crew module to inspect the charring damage. Credit: NASA

Instead of repeating the same deep bounce from the inaugural flight, Artemis II will use a gentler "lofted" approach, Henfling said. Orion will still dip in and out of the atmosphere before the final plunge, but with a less dramatic climb and fall. That change shortens the distance to splashdown and keeps the gas‑pressure spikes seen on the first flight in a tolerable range. NASA brought in an independent review team before approving the revised plan. 

Glover said he's been thinking about re-entry since April 3, 2023: the day he was assigned to the Artemis II crew. 

"At one of the first press conferences, we were asked what are we looking forward to, and I said, 'Splashdown,'" he said during a very long-distance call with reporters from the capsule Wednesday night. "Riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound."

Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, third from left, looks pleased with himself after positioning the microphone in front of Rise, the moon mission's zero-gravity indicator, during a call with reporters on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. Credit: NASA / Youtube screenshot

Though alarming, NASA officials said in 2024 that the damage to Artemis I's heat shield would not have harmed a crew.

"They would have not sensed any disturbance inside the vehicle, there would not have been any excessive heating on the structure, and the guidance would have put them exactly where the Navy needed to recover them," said Amit Kshatriya, a senior NASA official.

As Orion nears Earth, communications will switch from the giant moon‑tracking antennas of the Deep Space Network to near‑Earth relay satellites. About 20 minutes before entry, the service module — the section with solar arrays and the main engine — will separate and burn up over the ocean, leaving only the crew capsule to face the punishing heat.

Following Artemis I, engineers redesigned the reentry and descent path for the Orion spacecraft during Artemis II. Credit: NASA infographic

Entry begins roughly 75 miles up, with Orion moving at 25,000 mph. Air piling up in front of the capsule will heat to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, engulfing it in plasma that may briefly cut off radio contact. Inside, the crew will feel about 3.9Gs — a crushing pressure of four times his or her own weight.

Though the astronauts have often described potential records as mere distractions, Wiseman admitted there is one he has mentally clocked during their training — potentially beating previous reentry speeds by perhaps 200-or-so miles per hour. Apollo 10's velocity translated to about Mach 37, according to its 1969 press kit. 

"We still giggle a little bit when we see a click over Mach 39 on entry," he said months before the April 1 launch. 

Once Orion is slow enough, a tight parachute sequence will take over. A cover over the nose will blow off, two small drogues will pop out to steady the capsule, then three large orange parachutes will open in stages to cut its speed to a survivable splashdown. Small thrusters will tip the capsule so it hits the waves at the safest angle near the California coast.

After splashdown, NASA will keep Orion powered for roughly two hours to monitor how temperatures inside the capsule change as it cools in the Pacific, even after the astronauts are on the recovery ship.

Dan Flores, who is on the recovery team, may be biased but calls this his favorite part of the mission.

"We have our friends flying around the moon," he said. "This is when we get to bring our friends back home to their families."

Orion is in space, the Artemis II crew is returning from the moon, and you can follow their journey without leaving Earth.

NASA's Artemis Real-time Orbit Website, or AROW, allows the public to track the moonship. During the roughly 10-day test flight, anyone with a phone or computer can see how far the crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — are from Earth.

The tracker turns a complex deep space mission into something easier to understand at a glance. With data from sensors on the spacecraft, AROW takes information already flowing to mission control in Houston and interprets it into simple visuals for the layperson. Instead of trying to picture where the crew might be, you can actually see their path, distances, and major milestones as they happen.

People can download the NASA app or go to the website to give the tracker a spin. 

AROW began updating about a minute after liftoff on Wednesday, April 1, and will keep feeding live information until Orion dives back into Earth's atmosphere for a splashdown at the end of the mission. Online, users can see where the spacecraft sits in space and trace its figure-eight route.

NASA's Artemis Real-time Orbit Website provides the public with information about the Artemis II moon mission as it happens. Credit: NASA / AROW screenshot

NASA designed the website to show more than a dot on a map. It highlights key moments in the mission and points out features on the moon, including landing sites from the Apollo program. That lets viewers connect what they’re seeing today through Artemis — named after Apollo's twin sister in Greek mythology — with the first era of human exploration on the lunar surface.

The NASA app includes similar features, plus an augmented reality tracker. After calibration, the app uses phone sensors to tell you how to move your device so on‑screen markers line up with where Orion is relative to your position on Earth. 

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For people who love to pore through the numbers, AROW also shares precise data describing Orion's location and motion.

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Since launch, the crew has been in a high-Earth orbit, allowing them time to check out the systems aboard the spacecraft before pushing into a moon-bound trajectory.

Artemis II is NASA's first crewed mission in the Artemis campaign and a major step toward landing on the moon and learning how to live there. By sending astronauts around the moon and bringing them home safely, NASA is attempting to prove the systems needed for future lunar landings — and, perhaps down the road, the first human mission to Mars.

The Moon is nearing a new lunar phase, the Third Quarter. This occurs half of the Moon’s surface appears illuminated, with the visible portion continuing to shrink each night as we move towards the New Moon.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, April 9, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 59% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There's plenty for you to see on the surface of the Moon tonight, even if you don't have any visual aids. Just looking up with your eyes, you should be able to see the Mare Imbrium, Tycho Crater, and the Kepler Crater. With binoculars, you'll also be able to see the Gassendi Crater, Alps Mountains, and the Apennine Mountains. Finally, if you have a telescope, expect to see features like the Apollo 12 landing spot, the Schiller Crater, and the Rima Ariadaeus.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, it takes the Moon roughly 29.5 days to orbit Earth, passing through eight distinct stages during that time. While the same side of the Moon always faces us, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves, which is why it can look full, partly lit, or just a slim crescent. These shifting appearances are known as the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

After a grueling descent through Earth's atmosphere, NASA will strap the Artemis II astronauts into bulky spacesuits for an obstacle course.

Within mere hours of the Orion spacecraft's splashdown on Friday, April 10, the crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen — won't be afforded much time to rest and relax. Instead, the four will be bounced around from one research group to the next before they've fully acclimated to Earth gravity. 

One of those studies will include putting their "right stuff" to the test. The gauntlet, far less flashy than an episode of American Gladiators, will unfold back at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, a giant robotic crane and a heavy test suit will help a small team answer a crucial question: After 10 days of weightlessness in space, how soon can humans safely get back to work in another world?

The experiment grows out of a longer‑running study with astronauts returning from six‑month missions on the International Space Station. Those crews spend about as long in orbit as a trip to Mars might take — and they come home pallid and wobbly. 

Scientists worry that in a weakened state, astronauts might not be ready for moonwalks or Marswalks, which require strength and agility.

"We don't want to put the astronauts in a position where they’re going to be stranded in a spacesuit, asking them to do tasks that are probably above what their physiologic capabilities are going to be in," said Jason Norcross, a senior scientist leading the effort. "This helps us really with planning, more than anything else."

Without gravity, muscles atrophy and aerobic fitness fades. The brain and inner ear systems that tell us which way is up and help us stay balanced also need time to readjust. 

To investigate that, Norcross' team has used the Active Response Gravity Offload System, or ARGOS, at Johnson. Picture a crane that holds part of a person's weight. By lifting just the right amount, ARGOS lets a suited astronaut feel as if he or she is in a different gravity environment.

For space station astronauts, ARGOS is tuned to Martian gravity, and the obstacle course is framed with that in mind: Can someone who has spent six months in orbit step into a 400‑pound suit and, within about a day of landing, safely make their way through a mock Mars spacewalk? 

Faking lunar gravity

For Artemis II, the team will reuse the same basic setup but dial ARGOS to lunar gravity instead — one‑sixth Earth's pull — and tweak the tasks to echo the type of work astronauts will need to do on the moon.

Within one to four hours of landing, the Artemis II astronauts will first tackle a capsule escape drill using a mock spacecraft. Lying on their backs, they'll have to sit up, deploy a ladder, climb up and over it, shoulder a pack, and walk a set distance. This exercise seeks to understand whether a crew can open a hatch if a landing goes awry. 

That's a question shared by many space physiologists, said Marie Mortreux, an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island. She studies how muscles and bones cope with different levels of gravity.

"When they come back home from space, you're familiar with those images," said Mortreux, who isn't involved in the Artemis II EVA simulations. "They can't walk … and I'm like, 'What's going to happen if they can't make it out?'"

NASA astronaut Kayla Barron gets assistance out of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule after splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico on May 6, 2022. Credit: NASA / Aubrey Gemignani

Mortreux's research in rodents suggests that lower-body, weight‑bearing muscles take the biggest hit in space. Arm muscles — the ones people need for latches and handles — hold up better because astronauts use them constantly to pull themselves around in weightlessness. That's reassuring, she told Mashable, but it's not a reason to be complacent, underscoring the need for more research like this. 

Despite being tired and uncomfortable, all space station astronauts who have been subjected to the experiments so far have managed to complete them. 

Inside the spacesuit challenge

The test will continue with a simulated lunar EVA in moonlike gravity the next day. Each of the four crewmates will change into liquid cooling garments, close‑fitting layers threaded with thin water tubes to keep them from overheating. Then, they'll climb into heavy-duty EVA spacesuits that require entering through a back hatch. Just getting into them is physically taxing. 

Once the astronauts stand up, the team will connect their suits to ARGOS. From that point forward, the test compresses the most challenging parts of a moonwalk into a 30 to 40‑minute obstacle course: down a ladder on a mock lander platform, across unstable ground, through geology drills, and onto a steep treadmill hike. The ladder is deceptively difficult: Any task that forces crew to turn their heads, look down, or rely on their inner sense of orientation, could trigger vertigo.

"You'll often see [returning astronauts] keep their head in line with their body," Norcross said, "which is why, when we've designed a lot of our tasks, we've designed them with a lot of turning, a lot of head movement up and down."

Artemis II astronaut Victor Glover dodges rocks and carries a loaded bag during a moonwalk simulation while attached to the ARGOS system to get baseline data ahead of his post-landing obstacle course. Credit: NASA / Robert Markowitz

Next, the astronauts will have to bend and squat through tasks meant to rehearse making electrical and fluid connections. In a real mission, that kind of work might power up a lander or connect life‑support lines — unglamorous but essential chores.

From there, the experiment will shift to the most punishing part. In a trailer filled with sand and rocks, the astronauts will carry several 30‑pound bags back and forth over uneven footing. The ground tends to shift, visibility is limited by the helmet, and the suit resists every stride. 

Then, for the science activity: The astronauts will have to hold a tool steady for about a minute to mimic using an instrument, swing a hammer to chip off a rock fragment, and dig a trench with a scoop. Those moves echo what future crews might need to do to collect samples on the lunar surface.

The test will finish on a treadmill. Still attached to the crane, the astronauts will walk roughly half a mile over slopes, including a steep uphill climb. 

"Most treadmills don't even go up to 20 percent," Norcross said, explaining how high they'll set the inclination, "and sometimes it requires them to slow down pretty significantly. But they still put one foot in front of the other."

Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch climbs down the ladder of a mockup lander while attached to the ARGOS system to get baseline data ahead of her post-landing obstacle course. Credit: NASA / Helen Arase Vargas

A safety check for future moonwalks

Each Artemis II astronaut will endure the obstacle course, which will take about 1.5 hours to complete, one at a time. Norcross' team will track how long each task takes, how much energy the astronauts use, and how their heart rates respond. The whole experiment repeats three days later to measure how their performance changes over time.

From the space station study, Norcross already sees a pattern: Astronauts look and feel far better by the fourth day after landing, and close to normal within a week, even after half a year in orbit. 

Because Artemis II was short, these tests give NASA a cautious baseline. The data should help mission planners decide how aggressive to make the first lunar excursions, how far to let astronauts roam, and which jobs to push to later days after their bodies have had time to adapt. 

So even though the Wiseman, Koch, Glover, and Hansen didn't set foot on the moon, they're going to at least feel like they did.

"For this Artemis II crew, it'll be, 'Congratulations, you've done your lunar EVA,'" Norcross said.

The Moon is in its waning phase. This means that each night until the New Moon, it will appear smaller and smaller. This is because of where we are in the lunar cycle, a cycle of roughly 29.5 days as the Moon orbits Earth and the portion illuminated by the Sun gradually changes from our point of view. Keep reading to see where we are in that cycle tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, April 8, the Moon phase is Waning Gibbous. Tonight, 68% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There's plenty for you to see on the surface of the Moon tonight, even if you don't have any visual aids. Just looking up with your eyes, you should be able to see the Mare Imbrium, Tycho Crater, and the Oceanus Procellarum. With binoculars, you'll also be able to see the Gassendi Crater, Grimaldi Basin, and Clavius Crater. Finally, if you have a telescope, expect to see features like the Apollo 12 landing spot and the Schiller Crater.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to circle Earth, moving through eight unique phases along the way. Although we always see the same side from Earth, different amounts of its surface are lit by the Sun as it orbits, causing it to appear fully illuminated, partially lit, or as a thin crescent. These changing views are called the lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Artemis II astronauts spent Monday rounding the moon's edge, digital cameras in hand, snapping views of craters, an eclipse, and a blue marble rising and setting in deep space.

Inside NASA's Orion spacecraft, Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen took turns at the windows like kids on their first plane ride.

They spent about seven hours rotating through observation shifts on the sixth day of the mission, swapping lenses, calling out features, and firing off photos as the spacecraft arced around the far side of the moon.

At closest approach, they skimmed within about 4,000 miles of the lunar surface — close enough for every ridge, crater, and shadow to snap into sharp relief. The astronauts surprised mission control with descriptions of the surface appearing more brown than gray, with even some splotches of green and snowy white.

The latest Artemis II images don't just revisit Apollo — they mark a leap beyond it. Apollo crews captured their own iconic shots of the Earth and moon, but Artemis II delivered longer looks, sharper detail, and a front-row seat to the experience. Their extended total solar eclipse, for example, was a moment that earlier NASA missions could only catch in passing, if at all. That's the difference between spaceflight half a century ago and the 10-day Artemis journey that launched April 1.

"At one point towards the end of the images of my time in Window 3, I just had an overwhelming sense of being moved by looking at the moon," Koch said. "It lasted just a second or two, and I actually couldn't even make it happen again, but something just drew me in suddenly to the lunar landscape, and it became real." 

Up close, moon craters look like rain drops deforming sand on a beach. Credit: NASA

The moon didn't exactly sit still for its portrait. Sunlight slid low across the surface, throwing long, dramatic shadows along the terminator — that line between light and shadow across the lunar face — turning familiar terrain into something theatrical. When it was Glover's turn at the window, he couldn't stop studying the ominous boundary.

"There's just so much magic in the terminator," he said, "the islands of light, the valleys that would look like black holes [that] you'd fall straight to the center of the moon if you stepped in."

The massive Mare Orientale basin unfurled in rings of mountains, its dark, hardened lava floor a testament to ancient eruptions. The crew suggested names — Carroll and Integrity — for smaller "fresh" craters, to honor Wiseman's late wife and their spacecraft.

The Artemis II crew observed an Earthset before a total solar eclipse on its lunar flyby April 6, 2026. Credit: NASA

"Something that's truly awesome up here is we now have the moon and the Earth in Window 3  simultaneously, and the moon is a gibbous, and the Earth is a crescent," Wiseman said. "I'm guessing in about 45 minutes, we'll have two identical crescents as we change our position in the universe." 

That made Kelsey Young, head of Artemis's science flight operations, literally giggle from mission control in Houston. 

Artemis II captured an Earthrise view as the Orion spacecraft reemerged from the far side of the moon. Credit: NASA

"That is pretty darn cool, thank you," she said.

Then came the stark perspective shift.

The moon looms large as the Earth sets in the distance. Credit: NASA

As Orion slipped behind the moon, Earth began to sink. In one frame, it hangs as a thin crescent, clouds swirling over the Pacific, the rest of the planet swallowed by night. Minutes later, the crew lost contact with Earth entirely, cut off for about 50 minutes as the moon itself blocked radio signals. 

And, perhaps just to raise the stakes, the sky went dark.

For nearly an hour, the astronauts got to experience a total solar eclipse from space, with the moon blocking the sun. Credit: NASA

From their vantage point, the astronauts watched the moon swallow the sun in a total solar eclipse that stretched almost an hour. The sun's corona glowed, stars pricked through the darkness, and even Venus made a cameo. But the backlit moon stole the show. 

Not long after, Earth came back — this time rising. A pale blue crescent emerged from beyond the bumpy lunar surface in a historic Earthrise.

As the moon blocks the sun, creating a solar eclipse for the astronauts, Venus, left, glints brightly from beyond. Credit: NASA

NASA says the images will help scientists better understand how giant asteroid impacts shape worlds, and how the moon built its battered surface over billions of years. Those craters, ever etched in its surface, log the history of the solar system. 

But they also do something more profound: make us cherish home.

The Artemis II crew sees the sun peak out from behind the moon as the Orion spacecraft reemerges from the far side. Credit: NASA

"The truth is the moon really is its own body in the universe. It's not just a poster in the sky that goes by," Koch said. "When we have that perspective, and we compare it to our home of the Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common, everything we need, the Earth provides, and that, in and of itself, is somewhat of a miracle."

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UPDATE: Apr. 7, 2026, 2:04 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with an additional quote from pilot Victor Glover.

Tonight, when the Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman's daughters go to bed, they can look at the moon and know both their father and mother are out there.

Wiseman and the rest of the NASA mission's crew flew around the lunar far side on Monday, April 6, marking the climactic moment in their 10-day spaceflight: their closest approach to the moon. Commander Wiseman, along with pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch, spent their day in deep space observing the moon. 

A few hours before mission control's expected communication blackout with the Orion spacecraft, the crew announced they had seen two previously unnamed craters and would like to propose names for them. 

One was to honor Wiseman's late wife. 

"There's a feature in a really neat place on the moon," Hansen, whose voice trembled, told Houston. "It's a bright spot on the moon, and we'd like to call it Carroll."

Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who had two daughters with Wiseman, died of cancer in 2020. She was 46. Their children are Katie and Ellie. 

The fresh crater lies near the boundary between the moon's near side and far side — an area that, at certain times during the moon's orbit, can be seen from Earth. This feature is just northwest of Glushko crater.

Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman, right, wipes away tears as crew proposes the name 'Carroll' for a lunar crater to honor his late wife. Credit: NASA / Youtube screenshot

As Hansen spoke in the livestream, Wiseman could be seen in the spacecraft, dubbed Integrity, wiping his eyes and placing his hand on his crewmate's shoulder. Then, all four astronauts, who have trained together for the mission since 2023, floated toward each other for a group hug. Koch removed her glasses to wipe away tears. 

Before the emotional moment, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jenni Gibbons, serving as the communicator in mission control, told Wiseman that he had family in the viewing gallery. That was a surprise. After questioning if Gibbons was kidding, he made a heart with his hands toward the video camera and pointed to a bracelet on his wrist. 

In a 2023 interview with Mashable, Wiseman said he'd grappled with the what-if scenarios if something were to go wrong on the mission.

"I've got two teenage daughters. I love them to death. They're the best thing in my life," he said. "Life is filled with risks, so why would anybody choose to not live? Go out there and explore. Go do great things."

Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman makes a heart with his hands for his daughters during a livestream of the crew's lunar approach. Credit: NASA / Youtube screenshot

When the spacecraft wraps around the far side on Monday, the astronauts will lose contact with mission control for about 40 to 50 minutes. That blackout is caused by the moon blocking radio signals between them. Glover said he hopes the world will pray along with them at that time. The spacecraft is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, April 10.

To honor their spacecraft, the crew also proposed naming another crater Integrity. This second landmark is located on the far side, sandwiched between Mare Orientale and the Ohm crater. 

Gibbons, who trained with the crew as an alternate, called back: "Integrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear." 

Artemis II astronauts will watch Earth sink and rise behind the moon's curved edge today and ride through a slow solar eclipse unlike anything anyone has seen from home.

From the windows of the Orion spacecraft, the crew will see Earth as a bright, blue orb hanging above a stark gray foreground. Sunlight reflecting off oceans, clouds, and continents will turn our planet into a luminous beacon in the blackness of deep space. As the spacecraft curves around the moon, that beacon will drift lower and finally slide behind the cratered lunar rim in a slow-motion Earthset.

Unlike a sunset on Earth, where the sun drops beneath a distant horizon, this Earthset involves the entire planet. To the astronauts, Earth will seem to glide across the sky and then vanish. In that moment, the place where everyone they know lives will disappear from view, replaced by a silent, airless world.

All of this unfolds during today's close lunar flyby, the centerpiece of NASA's Artemis II mission. This swing around the lunar far side marks the climax of the 10-day spaceflight, when astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen come closest to the moon's surface, lose contact with Earth for over 40 minutes, and experience the rare combination of Earthset, a drawn-out solar eclipse, and Earthrise in a single sweeping arc.

As Earth goes out of sight, radio contact with mission control will drop for roughly 40 minutes because the moon itself blocks the line of sight back home. Even without that link, the crew will keep working in the Orion spacecraft, dubbed Integrity, using onboard devices to capture images, measurements, and notes. 

"I would love it if the entire world could come together and just be hoping and praying for us to get that acquisition of signal," said Glover, the mission's pilot.

Apollo 8 astronauts captured Earthrise, the first color photograph of Earth taken by a person in lunar orbit, on Dec. 24, 1968. Credit: NASA

In that radio silence, the crew will also experience a unique kind of solar eclipse. On Earth, when the moon passes in front of the sun, the two appear almost the same size in the sky, and people on the ground see the sun's hazy outer atmosphere, called the corona, spread around a dark lunar disk. 

Near the moon, the geometry changes. From the astronauts' perspective, this is still a solar eclipse: The moon slides in front of the sun and blocks its light. The difference is our planet will appear off to the side, rising and setting near the rim, while the shrunken sun slowly disappears behind the much larger lunar surface.

The crew will use protective eyewear similar to the eclipse glasses people wore during the total solar eclipse across North America in April 2024. Those filters will let them safely look toward the sun in the moments before it vanishes and just after it returns.

"It's a little bit different, just based on the sizes of the objects. When we experience an eclipse here on Earth, the sun is about the same size whenever it's eclipsed by the moon," said Trevor Graff, an Artemis science officer, during a NASA broadcast. "The Integrity crew is going to be much closer to the moon at that time, so they're going to see the sun as a small disk [that] disappears."

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Once the sun is concealed, the scene will change again. With direct sunlight blocked, the astronauts will have a rare chance to study the moon without glare. Subtle features in the landscape may stand out more clearly against the dim, scattered light that remains. In that extended twilight, the moon itself becomes the main subject, lit only by reflected light and the faint glow of the distant universe.

"The moon will look about like holding a basketball at arm's reach," said Jacob Bleacher, NASA's chief exploration scientist, "so they'll be able to see a good bit of the moon."

A stuffie designed by an eight-year-old child serves as the zero-gravity indicator in the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA / Youtube screenshot

As they round the moon, the planet will reappear as an Earthrise, echoing the famous scene first photographed during Apollo 8: the gray curve of the Moon in the foreground, with a colorful Earth lifting into view above it. Rise, the mission's zero gravity indicator and plush mascot, celebrates that moment and bridges history with NASA's return to lunar space after more than 50 years. The little guy who freely floats through the cabin was designed by a second-grader in California.

If communications return on schedule, people on the ground may see elements of this sequence almost in real-time, sharing the instant when Earth clears the lunar edge and brightens the spacecraft windows. Behind the scenes, a dedicated science evaluation team will begin sorting through the flood of images and measurements, helping mission controllers decide what to prioritize for early analysis.

By the end of this long day, the spacecraft will have begun the journey home for a nailbiting splashdown off the California coast on Friday, April 10. 

Artemis II is about to have its climactic moment: The crew is heading into their closely choreographed lunar flyby, when their spacecraft will swing around the moon's far side. 

NASA will broadcast the space event live on Monday, April 6. During this pass, the four astronauts will carry out a detailed science plan that calls for 30 different observation targets. Some of the crew will station themselves at the central windows to photograph and document the moon views, while others will offer support from inside the cabin, rotating through roles as the flyby unfolds.

As the spacecraft moves behind the moon, Earth will gradually slide across the windows and then slip out of sight in a dramatic Earthset. During that period, radio contact with mission control in Houston will drop for about 40 minutes, a planned loss of signal caused by the moon blocking the line of sight. Even without that communication link, the crew will keep working.

Check out these Mashable stories for how to watch the historic mission milestone, why scientists are excited about the crew's lunar observations, and what the astronauts will experience from their perspective:

• Artemis 2 crew could be the first to ever lay eyes on these lunar areas

• How to watch the Artemis II moon flyby live

• The day Earth slipped behind the moon: the Artemis II crew's eclipse

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It's moon flyby day, folks.

The Artemis II astronauts are expected to make history today as they reach distances no humans have ever traveled before on their journey around the moon.

The four-person crew — Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen — aboard the Orion spacecraft is scheduled to pass the distance record of 248,655 miles from Earth, set in 1970 by the Apollo 13, and continue on to 252,760 miles. In doing so, they'll be the first humans to see some parts of the far side of the moon in real time.

They won't be landing, but they will be gathering vital insights and data that will help NASA prepare for a future lunar landing in a couple of years' time. It's the most critical part of the 10-day mission, and you can tune into the historical event live.

Where to watch the Artemis II moon flyby livestream

NASA will provide live coverage of the historic lunar flyby on Monday, April 6, beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET. Fortunately, they won't gatekeep the livestream; you have plenty of options to tune in.

NASA+, the space agency's streaming service, will livestream the flyby, as well as the agency's YouTube channel and social media accounts. All of these options are completely free. Several streaming services are also hosting the NASA+ livestream on their platforms, if you prefer to watch there, including Netflix and Peacock.

Credit: NASA

While coverage starts at 1:00 p.m. ET, the flyby itself isn't expected until around 2:45 p.m. ET. NASA has outlined key lunar flyby times and milestones, but they are subject to change based on real-time operations. The crew will surpass the record for humans' farthest distance from Earth around 1:56 p.m. ET, and audio-only remarks from the astronauts will begin shortly after.

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Over a half-century ago, NASA only spent three years landing astronauts on the moon before the nation lost interest in continuing the program.

That meant the U.S. space agency didn't get to launch at least three more planned Apollo missions that would have explored new regions of the lunar surface. 

But NASA never forgot — demonstrated by a little artifact the agency tucked inside the Orion spacecraft: An American flag that would have flown on Apollo 18 in the early 1970s.

"The flag serves as a powerful emblem of America's renewed commitment to human exploration of the moon," NASA said, "while honoring the legacy of the Apollo pioneers who first blazed the trail."

NASA's Artemis II mission, which blasted off April 1, is a crowded flight, carrying four astronauts in a spacecraft the size of two minivans. While the crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — didn't have to leave their carry-ons on the Cape Canaveral, Florida, launchpad, their "home" for the 10-day flight around the moon is certainly packed to the gills. Still, NASA had room to stow away a few precious mementos and other odds and ends for the journey. 

The "official flight kit," established in federal law, allows NASA, commercial partners, and international entities to use these items later as awards, gifts, or museum exhibits. But for them to get those items onboard, each supplier has to ask NASA for written permission. 

The Artemis II flight kit is considerably smaller than the one that flew on the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022, which contained about 120 pounds of weird stuff. On this journey, the capsule was maxed out with systems and cargo to keep four adults alive. A toilet, compact rowing machine, food, and other life-support equipment, as well as the astronauts themselves, had to take priority.

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As usual, Artemis II's kit includes a lot of flags, mission patches, and pins, most of which will go to employees and contractors who helped support the project. But here are some of the more unusual and symbolic items that made the cut:

Pieces of the Space Launch System

When a rocket is about to thrust you into space at 18,000 mph, the last thing you as an astronaut want to hear is that some of its parts are actually sitting right next to you inside the capsule. 

But don't worry. These are shavings from the Space Launch System's core stage, likely little aluminum bits recovered from the welding and machining process. After the first eight minutes of the flight, the core stage shut down its engines and detached, breaking apart over the Pacific Ocean. 

At 212 feet tall, the core stage of the Space Launch System holds more than 733,000 gallons of fuel to feed four engines at its base. Credit: NASA

Bags of dirt

Yes, mission planners made room for 10 bags of dirt — but not just any dirt. Special dirt. These bags contain soil collected from trees whose seeds flew on Artemis I. After that flight, they were planted on Earth. Now some of the soil that helped them grow is making the lunar trip, tracing a full circle from space to Earth and back again. 

On Apollo 14, NASA brought seeds to learn about the effects of deep space on plants. Unfortunately, the can containing them broke, with the seeds getting all mixed up. No longer viable for research, the seeds became part of a new program. Not wanting to waste them, NASA delivered the seeds to the U.S. Forest Services. When hundreds began sprouting, they earned the nickname of "moon trees." 

NASA didn't pack any tree seeds this time, but the Canadian Space Agency did, continuing the tradition. As a member of the Artemis II crew, Canadian astronaut Hansen is the first non-American on a deep space flight.

Other seeds, including a packet of zinnias and chili peppers, are also on board. 

The Wrights pioneered the first powered airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on Dec. 17, 1903. Credit: The Estate of Orville Wright / Smithsonian

Wright Brothers' fabric swatch

A one-inch square of fabric from the Wright brothers' Flyer is inside Orion right now. The swatch is meant to commemorate the birth of flight. The scrap is on loan from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, along with another little piece that previously flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985. After the spacecraft splashes down, the artifacts will return to the museum. 

As another nod to the history of flight, the kit holds a photo negative from Ranger 7, the 1964 probe that became the first U.S. mission to successfully touch the lunar surface.  

Lab-grown astronaut tissue samples

Separate from the flight kit, the mission is carrying a unique science experiment, known as A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response, or AVATAR. The test involves live tissue from each of the four astronauts on thumb-drive-size chips, stored in a temperature-controlled box. 

Before the launch, doctors drew blood from each crew member and grew cells from those samples to load on the chips. The samples mimic bone marrow, a crucial part of the immune system.  

After the mission, scientists will study how gene activity changes within individual cells, comparing flight samples with copies on Earth. The work aims to reveal how deep-space radiation and microgravity affect blood cell development. And it will also serve as a test case for whether these chips can predict health outcomes. In the future, the research may help NASA build personalized health kits for astronauts. 

Lucas Ye, 8, won a contest to design a zero-gravity indicator for the Artemis II moon mission. Credit: Freelancer / NASA

A stuffie with a story

NASA didn't assign Snoopy to this moon mission — the beagle flew previously on Artemis I — but another cuddly plush toy is filling in. Though not a part of the official flight kit, the round mascot, selected by the astronauts from more than 2,600 contest entries, has an important role. It's what's known as a zero-G indicator, letting mission control know when the spacecraft has reached microgravity.

How? It floats.

A second grader from California, Lucas Ye, designed the little stuffie, who looks like the moon wearing an Earth cap. It represents the famous Earthrise image taken during Apollo 8, when humans first saw the planet hovering above the moon's horizon. Zipped inside is an SD card of names from people rooting for the mission's success.

Right now, it doesn't look as though there's a way to buy Rise, as NASA apparently hasn't licensed it. But there may be some pent-up demand for the cutie: The official Kennedy Space Center gift shop has temporarily stopped selling most Artemis-related merchandise due to "an unprecedented surge" in orders. 

"We sincerely appreciate your excitement and support," the shop said in a notice on its website, "and kindly ask for your patience as fulfillment times may be longer than usual."

In space, no one can hear you scream in frustration at your computer.

With Artemis II on its way to the moon for a historic lunar mission, many of us are glued to the ongoing NASA livestream of the mission to make sure everything is OK. So far, so good on the important moon mission side of things, but when it comes to email management, the crew ran into a bit of a snag on Thursday.

Bluesky user Niki Grayson noticed and clipped a short segment of the livestream involving the crew needing help to deal with Microsoft Outlook problems, just like us regular people back on Earth.

The hilariously mundane problem occurred because Commander Reid Wiseman somehow had two different instances of Outlook open on his personal computing device (or PCD), which in this case is a Microsoft Surface Pro, according to our colleagues at PCMag. That was on top of another problem that prompted Wiseman to request mission control in Houston to actually gain remote access to the device. After an hour or so, mission control had managed to get in, fix the problem, and get out.

Anyone who has ever had to navigate IT problems at work can certainly relate.

The astronaut's email problems aren't the only mishap experienced by the crew in the early days of the mission.

The crew's toilet malfunctioned while the crew was still orbiting the Earth, requiring an emergency fix.

Artemis II has officially left Earth's neighborhood, with the Orion spacecraft now on a three-day leg of the deep space journey toward the moon.

After NASA polled "go" on translunar injection — or TLI, the key engine firing — flight controllers commanded the maneuver just before 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 2, less than 24 hours after the historic mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

For the U.S. space agency, this moment is the real point of no return in a carefully orchestrated test flight. It's the last major engine firing of the mission. The burn not only pushes the capsule toward the moon, it also serves as the same critical maneuver that will eventually bring the astronauts home. 

That's riskier than NASA's usual spaceflights. On the International Space Station, astronauts circle Earth every hour and a half. If something goes wrong, they're never more than about 90 minutes from an emergency landing. But on Artemis II, as soon as controllers take this step, NASA has committed to the rest of the mission, save a couple of options for a U-turn, said crewmate Christina Koch. 

"Wrapping our heads around that is very interesting," said Koch, who is heading up those procedures, during a pre-launch news conference. "Before we go into some of our entry [simulations], we talk about how, 'Hey, there's no canceling the countdown on this — we are re-entering,' but the truth is, we are re-entering at the moment we do TLI."

The 10‑day Artemis II flight, led by Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Jeremy Hansen and Koch, aims to pave the way for a moon-landing during Artemis IV as early as 2028. This mission tests the resources needed for that upcoming journey: NASA's powerful rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and the teams on the ground who guide them. 

In future Artemis missions to the moon, the agency wants astronauts to practice living for longer periods away from Earth before pushing on to Mars, where crews will need far more extraterrestrial survival skills. 

NASA's Artemis II mission launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:35 p.m. ET April 1, 2026. Credit: NASA / Joel Kowsky

So far the crew has set up the spacecraft toilet — with a few setbacks — and performed a piloting demonstration for steering toward and around the spent propulsion system. The exercise was meant to test how Orion's manual controls handle, as this will become necessary in future missions for docking with moon landers in space. 

The astronauts are also acclimating to life inside the capsule. The cabin has had unexpectedly cold temperatures. The crew unpacked extra long-sleeve shirts from their suitcases to try to warm up. 

At the end of Flight Day 1, the astronauts' sleep was disrupted by a middle-of-the-night, brief engine firing to adjust Orion's orbit around Earth. The ill-timed operation was part of the plan, and the crew returned to their sleeping bags for a few more hours of rest before the translunar injection burn. 

Koch set up Orion's system for the burn, performed by Orion's main engine on the European Service Module. The system provides enough thrust to accelerate a car from zero to 60 mph in less than three seconds.

Over a 10-day spaceflight, the Artemis II crew will fly around Earth and then the moon, testing the Orion spacecraft's life-support systems. Credit: NASA infographic

The roughly six-minute engine firing was necessary to speed up the spacecraft so that it could escape Earth's gravitational pull. This technique allows the astronauts to travel without having to make major course corrections along the way. 

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The burn has reshaped the spacecraft's path into a long loop that will carry them out a quarter‑million miles from home. It will also harness the moon's gravity to slingshot Orion back to Earth. This is the first time since 1972 that humans have left Earth's orbit. 

The mission configuration is what's known as a free-return trajectory, said Lakiesha Hawkins, an exploration systems development administrator.

"This is something that we've experienced before," she said. "If you recall in your history, we did that on Apollo 8 and Apollo 13." 

For the first time in 50 years, human beings are more than 1,000 miles away from Earth as the historic Artemis II mission continues.

The four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen — are currently circling the Earth and preparing for a potential translunar injection later today.

As they look toward the moon, NASA also shared a picture looking back at the Earth, which appears as a crescent in the black of space.

While it might look like the moon at first, this picture depicts the Earth as seen from the Orion spacecraft. Credit: NASA

The picture shared by NASA is a screenshot from the Orion livestream, available via YouTube. It shows part of the Orion spacecraft as it travels around the Earth.

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The picture calls to mind another iconic NASA photograph, known as "Earthrise."

Taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders on Dec. 24, 1968, the famous "Earthrise" photograph depicts the Earth rising above the ghostly lunar horizon.

The 'Earthrise' photograph captured the Earth rising above the surface of the moon. Credit: Bill Anders / NASA

"Earthrise" is one of the most famous space photographs ever taken. Apollo 8 astronauts were the first to orbit the moon, and thus the first-ever humans to witness Earthrise in person. And like the Apollo 8 astronauts before them, the crew of Orion is aiming for a lunar orbit.

Artemis II astronauts will not set foot on the moon during the planned 10-day lunar mission. However, they could travel further away from home than any human being in history, reaching a distance of 248,700 miles, breaking a record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.

For now, the four-person Orion crew is still in orbit around the Earth, where they reached a maximum height of 46,000 miles. Later today, mission control will decide whether the historic lunar mission is a go or no-go. Should the mission proceed, Orion will leave Earth's orbit and head toward the moon.

If Orion forges ahead, they're scheduled to slingshot around the moon on April 6 before returning to Earth on April 10 or 11.

The Artemis II mission is part of a larger plan to establish a crewed lunar base, and potentially even a Martian base in the future.

You can track the progress of the Orion crew via the NASA website or app.

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With the Full Moon now passed, each night the moon will start to look smaller. It won't be noticeable at first, but after a few nights you'll see the moon start to fade from the right side. This will continue until we reach the New Moon, where it will appear completely dark.

Keep reading to see how much of it is visible tonight.

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Thursday, April 2, the Moon phase is North America is Waning Gibbous, according to NASA's Daily Moon Guide.

There's plenty to see if you have clear skies tonight. Even without visual aids to assist you, you can see the Kepler Crater, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Mare Tranquillitatis. If you do have assistance, in the form of binoculars, you'll be able to spot more features, including the Posidonius and Endymion Craters. Finally, a telescope will give you many viewing opportunities, with the Apollo 11, Caucasus Mountains, and the Schiller Crater appearing the clearest.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.

What are Moon phases?

According to NASA, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to circle Earth, moving through eight unique phases along the way. Although we always see the same side from Earth, different amounts of its surface are lit by the Sun as it orbits, causing it to appear fully illuminated, partially lit, or as a thin crescent. These changing views are called the lunar phases, and there are eight altogether:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.