NASA’s Artemis II mission, set to send four astronauts on a nearly 10-day mission around the Moon and back, will advance the agency’s goal to land astronauts at the Moon’s south polar region and will help set the stage for future crewed Mars missions. While the Artemis II crew will be the first humans to test NASA’s Orion spacecraft in space, they will also conduct science investigations that will inform future deep space missions, including a lunar science investigation as Orion flies about 4,000 to 6,000 miles from the Moon’s surface. “Artemis II is a chance for astronauts to implement the lunar science skills they've developed in training,” said Kelsey Young, Artemis II lunar science lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s also an opportunity for scientists and the engineers in mission control to collaborate during real-time operations, building on the years of testing and simulations that our teams have done together.”

A physical model based on black holes turning matter into dark energy offers a cure to hiccups in our understanding of the universe, including the mass of ghost-like particles called neutrinos

After analyzing images taken by a CubeSat that flew past the DART mission's collision with asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, NASA and ASI scientists report on Aug. 21 in the Planetary Science Journal that an estimated 35.3 million pounds (16 million kilograms) of dust and rocks spewed from the asteroid as a result of the crash, refining previous estimates that were based on data from ground and space-based observations.

Space-based solar panels could enable solar power to be harvested continuously instead of only when sunlight reaches Earth, reducing Europe’s need for Earth-based wind and solar by 80%, finds a study publishing August 21 in the Cell Press journal Joule. Using energy models, researchers estimate that in 2050, space-based solar power could cut the total costs of Europe’s total grid system by 7%–15%. However, these numbers hinge upon the rapid development of two NASA-designed technologies in order to meet Europe’s goal to achieve net-zero by 2050.  

The Global Observing SATellite for Greenhouse gases and Water cycle “IBUKI GW” (GOSAT-GW), developed jointly by the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), the Ministry of the Environment of Japan (MOE), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was successfully launched on June 29, 2025. The satellite has been in the initial functional verification operations phase. The first observations by the Total Anthropogenic and Natural emissions mapping SpectrOmeter-3 (TANSO-3) onboard this satellite were conducted from July 14 to July 20, 2025, and the proper operation of TANSO-3 was confirmed.