The US space agency Nasa should prioritise a mission to Uranus, an influential panel of scientists says.
The “ice giant” is the seventh planet in our Solar System, orbiting the Sun 19 times further out than the Earth.
They’ve nicknamed it “Earendel” and it’s the most distant, single star yet imaged by a telescope.
The light from this object has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us.
It’s at the sort of distance that telescopes normally would only be able to resolve galaxies containing millions of stars.
But the Hubble space observatory has picked out Earendel individually by exploiting a natural phenomenon that’s akin to using a zoom lens.
The American space agency has rolled out its new giant Moon rocket for the first time.
The vehicle, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), was taken to the pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to conduct a dummy countdown.
If that goes well, the rocket will be declared ready for a mission in which it will send an uncrewed test capsule around the Moon.
Giant mirror and infrared sensors to reveal a more detailed view than ever seen previously
As the first glows of light appeared from the darkness of the universe more than 13½ billion years ago, a process began that would result in humanity’s greatest question: where did we come from?
US and European officials have confirmed 24 December for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Engineers completed final checks on Friday before closing the observatory behind the nose cone of its Ariane rocket.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has taken 30 years and $10bn (£7.5bn) to develop, and is being described as one of the grand scientific endeavours of the 21st Century.
Engineers like to describe the process of landing a rover on Mars as the “seven minutes of terror”.
That’s how long it takes for a robot to come to a standing-stop at the surface of the Red Planet after entering the atmosphere faster than a rifle bullet; and so much has to go right in-between to avoid smashing into the ground.
For its upcoming flight, Orion will fly around the Moon without astronauts.
But it will eventually carry people as part of a US plan to return people to the lunar surface this decade.
Billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos is launched with three crew members aboard a New Shepard rocket on the world’s first unpiloted suborbital flight from Blue Origin’s Launch Site 1 near Van Horn, Texas , U.S., July 20, 2021.
Hope is not a method
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