The northern lights are fleeting and fantastical. But Elise Wright Knutsen, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Oslo, has gotten used to them. “I’m Norwegian, so the aurora is a big thing here,” she said. “You kind of grow up with it happening over your head.” But catching her first glimpse of the aurora on another planet hit differently. …
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Trump’s 2026 Budget Proposes Cutting NASA Funding by $6 Billion
Under President Trump’s proposed budget, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would largely become the National Moon and Mars Administration, with an almost singular focus on getting astronauts to those two destinations. The Trump administration proposes a budget of $18.8 billion for NASA, down 24 percent from $24.8 billion in the current budget year. The plan would introduce $1 billion …
Read More »DOGE Cuts Hobble Office That Would Aid NASA and SpaceX Mars Landings
An office in an obscure corner of the federal government that NASA has relied on to safely land astronauts on the moon and robotic probes on Mars is facing pressure to cut its tight-knit team of experts by at least 20 percent, according to two people familiar with the mandate. The thinning of the staff has already started at the …
Read More »Jared Isaacman, Trump’s Pick to Lead NASA, Calls Mars a Priority in Confirmation Hearing
NASA will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars, President Trump’s nominee to lead the space agency will tell a Senate committee on Wednesday. The nominee is Jared Isaacman, the chief executive of the payment processing company Shift4 Payments, who is a close associate of Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX. As someone who has led two private astronaut flights to …
Read More »Video Shows Mars and Deimos Close Up During ESA’s Hera Flyby
An asteroid-chasing spacecraft just swung past Mars on Wednesday. As it zipped by, it took hundreds of shots of the Red Planet, as well as several snaps of Deimos, one of the two small Martian moons. The operators of the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft were bewitched by the sci-fi aesthetics of the pictures. “We were waiting with impatience to …
Read More »Eric Schmidt Joins Relativity Space as C.E.O.
For a decade, Eric Schmidt ran Google as chief executive and as the “adult” in the room, mentoring the internet company’s young founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In 2011, Mr. Schmidt handed control of Google back to Mr. Page. He has not taken another C.E.O. job since. But on Monday, Mr. Schmidt told employees of Relativity Space, a rocket …
Read More »Why NASA Is Trying to Go Back to the Moon
NASA is aiming to send astronauts back to the moon, because that is what President Trump set as the destination of the agency’s human spaceflight program during his first term. On Dec. 11, 2017, Mr. Trump signed what the White House called Space Policy Directive 1, which stated that “the United States will lead the return of humans to the …
Read More »A Parade of Planets Is Marching Through the Night Sky
Astute skywatchers may have already seen the striking line of planets across the night sky in January. This week Mercury joins the queue. Now every other world in our solar system will be visible among the stars at the same time — if you know where to look. According to Gerard van Belle, director of science at Lowell Observatory in …
Read More »What Trump’s Pledge to Plant the U.S. Flag on Mars Really Means
During his Inaugural Address on Monday, President Donald J. Trump again promised to launch American astronauts to Mars. Seated nearby, Elon Musk, a political benefactor of Mr. Trump who founded SpaceX in the hope that it would one day be able to send colonists to Mars, beamed with enthusiasm and offered two thumbs up. The gargantuan Starship rocket that Mr. …
Read More »A Stargazers’ Guide to Watching the Full Moon Pass Mars and the a New Come
The first full moon of the year will glide through the sky on Monday night. For lucky stargazers in some parts of the world, it will also pass in front of the more-brilliantly-red-than-usual Mars in an event known as a lunar occultation. But that’s not all January’s sky has to offer. A new comet, expected to be the brightest of …
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