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<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA launched Europa Clipper to see if <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oxygen-europa-life-surface-ocean-subsurface-earth-juno-mission-jupiter-2024-3">Jupiter's moon Europa</a> could host alien life.</li><li>Scientists think Europa contains a vast saltwater ocean deep beneath its surface.</li></ul><p><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-could-tell-us-aliens-are-real-2023-2">NASA is serious about searching for alien life</a>, even within our own solar system.</p><p>On Monday, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the agency launched a spacecraft toward Europa, a moon of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-images-webb-sees-rings-moons-hubble-cant-2022-8">Jupiter</a>.</p><p>Scientists believe Europa contains a vast saltwater ocean deep beneath its icy crust, with twice as much water as Earth. It's perhaps the most promising place in our solar system for active <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asks-help-retrieving-perseverance-mars-samples-alien-life-2024-4">extraterrestrial life</a>.</p><div type="image" title="Europa" height="1700" width="2300" msid="114225773" hostid="261" sizebytes="181080"></div><p>The NASA mission, called Europa Clipper, aims to figure out whether <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-lava-from-moon-volcanoes-creates-jupiters-powerful-aurora-lights-2022-2">the Jupiter moon</a> and its ocean could support life. It's the largest interplanetary spacecraft NASA has ever built. The probe is about 16 feet tall and, when its vast wings of solar arrays are deployed, 100 feet wide. It weighs three-and-a-half tons.</p><p>Clipper is undertaking the first targeted exploration of an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-underwater-rover-hunt-alien-life-on-ocean-worlds-2019-11">ocean world</a> beyond our planet.</p><p>Even if there is no life on Europa, this mission is crucial in the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-no-contact-with-aliens-2019-9">search for alien life</a>, since ocean worlds across the galaxy are prime candidates for life.</p><p>Missions like Europa Clipper are "modern cathedrals" and "generational quests," said Laurie Leshin, the director of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-helicopter-pilot-what-job-is-like-advice-2023-1">NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory</a>, which built the spacecraft.</p><div type="image" title="giant spacecraft folded up between red Airbus panels with a large round foil-covered piece on the front with technicians in blue clean suits standing nearby in a giant white clearnroom" height="1280" width="1920" msid="114225774" hostid="261" sizebytes="132976"></div><p>"We scientists have been dreaming about a mission like Europa Clipper for more than 20 years. We've been working to build it for 10 years," she added in a briefing about the mission in September. "It's going to be another 10 years, because <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-animation-planetary-scientist-huge-solar-system-2019-11">Jupiter's so far away</a>, until we have all the science in the bag."</p><p>The spacecraft must travel 1.8 billion miles to get to Jupiter, getting a boost from Mars's gravity along the way. It's scheduled to arrive in April 2030.</p><h2 id="ccd765aa-2885-424c-ab06-309d5a9fdb77">A 7-body problem and unfathomable radiation</h2><p>Life exists without sunlight at the bottom of the ocean here on Earth. All it needs is an energy source, like hydrothermal vents which release heat from deep within the planet, and organic molecules containing essential elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen.</p><p>Europa Clipper is carrying nine scientific instruments to look for the fingerprints of those molecules, measure the salinity and depth of the underground ocean, and take photos of Europa down to one meter of resolution, among other things.</p><div type="image" title="illustration of a spacecraft with long wings of solar panels above a white moon covered in crisis crossed brown lines with jupiter in the distant background in space" height="1121" width="1995" msid="114225771" hostid="261" sizebytes="107104"></div><p>"Clipper is not actually going to look for life itself, but it's going to characterize the habitability of Europa," Gina DiBraccio, the acting director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said in the briefing.</p><p>The mission is designed to orbit Jupiter and fly past Europa 49 times, each time soaring over a different area to eventually cover almost the entire moon, pole to pole. The spacecraft will skim as close as 16 miles above Europa's surface.</p><p>The mission plan is a marvel of engineering. Rather than a three-body problem, falling into orbit around Jupiter is a "seven-body problem" because of the planet's large moons, Jordan Evans, the mission's project manager, said in the briefing.</p><p>During each flyby, Clipper will bathe in radiation from Jupiter that's equivalent to "a few million chest X-rays," Evans added.</p><p>It might even find out if Europa's ice really <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-jupiter-oceanic-moon-europa-radioactive-glow-2020-11">glows in the dark from that radiation</a>, as NASA research has previously indicated.</p>

NASA launches a probe to find out if there really could be alien life on Jupiter's moon Europa

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA has canceled its VIPER moon rover project.</li><li>NASA will still send a spacecraft to the moon and pay a company $323 million for the trip.</li></ul><p>NASA is scrapping a moon rover it spent $450 million to construct, and axing the machine's mission to find water on the moon. </p><p>The agency discontinued the development of VIPER — or Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover — because it proved exceedingly expensive.</p><p><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-ends-viper-project-continues-moon-exploration/#:~:text=Following%20a%20comprehensive%20internal%20review,stand%20down%20on%20the%20mission.">NASA's statement on Wednesday</a> said that the rover was to be scrapped because of "cost increases, delays to the launch date, and the risks of future cost growth."</p><p>It also said that continuing the rover project would result in an "increased cost that threatens cancellation or disruption" to other lunar research missions.</p><p>The rover, a car-sized robot that was supposed to explore the south side of the moon in search of "ice and other potential resources," has already been built, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/science/nasa-viper-moon-rover-canceled.html">The New York Times reported</a>.</p><p>However, tests to ensure that it could survive the shaking of the spacecraft and the environment of space have not yet been conducted.</p><p>According to the Times, the agency would save at least $84 million by not conducting the testing and not having to operate the rover on the moon.</p><p>VIPER's launch, which was scheduled for fall 2025, had already been delayed multiple times.</p><p>It was initially set to launch in late 2023. However, that launch was delayed to 2024 to allow more time to test the privately commissioned spacecraft Griffin, which was supposed to carry the rover to the moon.</p><p>Although the rover itself has been scrapped, the Griffin Lander will continue with its journey. </p><p>And NASA will still pay the company that built the spacecraft — the Astrobotic Technology Inc. of Pittsburgh — $323 million for the task, per the Times.</p><p><span>Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in the science directorate,</span><strong> </strong>told The Times that Griffin's landing would still be valuable even without the rover on board. </p><p>NASA maintains that it is "committed to studying and exploring the Moon for the benefit of humanity."</p><p>"The agency has an array of missions planned to look for ice and other resources on the Moon over the next five years," Nicola Fox, an associate administrator in the agency's science mission directorate, said in a statement.</p><p>The statement also added that any US industry and international companies that wish to use VIPER before it is disassembled could contact the agency after July 18.</p><p>News of the rover's scrapping comes as two NASA astronauts <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronaut-boeing-starliner-good-feeling-be-back-safe-2024-7">remain stuck in space</a> after issues were detected with the spacecraft they went up in — the Boeing Starliner.</p><p>The duo — Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore — arrived at the International Space Station via the Boeing Starliner on June 6 after a series of delays that postponed the craft's launch by a month.</p><p>While they were supposed to stay for only eight to 10 days, they have been stuck on the space station for over a month now, with no return date scheduled.</p><p>Representatives for NASA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.</p>

NASA is scrapping a moon rover that it spent $450 million to build

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA and Intuitive Machines' <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-intuitive-machines-moon-landing-attempt-after-astrobotic-fail-2024-2">IM-1 mission</a> landed on the moon on Thursday.</li><li>This is NASA's first return to the lunar surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972.</li></ul><p>An American moon lander touched down on the lunar surface for the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">first time in more than 50 years</a> on Thursday.</p><p>The uncrewed Odysseus lander, made by the Houston company Intuitive Machines in collaboration with NASA, claimed a major victory not just for the US but for the space industry at large: It's the first commercial spacecraft to ever <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-moon-landings-on-lunar-south-pole-crashed-2023-8">land on the moon without crashing</a>.</p> <p>The past five years have racked up a series of failed moon landings — by Russia, India, Japan, an Israeli nonprofit, a Japanese company, and, just last month, the NASA collaborator <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astrobotic-moon-lander-leaking-fuel-after-launch-threatening-mission-2024-1">Astrobotic</a>. Everyone is scrambling to get their feet on the moon in a new race to claim lunar territory and resources.</p><p>The success of Odysseus brings NASA and its commercial partners, finally, to the front of the 21st century's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-helping-private-companies-build-business-moon-make-lunar-billions-2023-6">mad moon dash</a>.</p><p>There were some initial<strong> </strong>complications in the landing. When the spacecraft touched down on the moon, it stopped communication with mission control.</p><div type="image" title="Illustration of Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft attempting moon landing" height="604" width="1094" msid="107926875" hostid="261"></div><p>"We're not dead yet," the mission director, Tim Crain, said on NASA's livestream of the landing. "It's faint, but it's there."</p><p>A couple of hours later, however, <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/Int_Machines/status/1760838333851148442">Intuitive Machines</a> announced on X it had established communications and learned the spacecraft had landed upright on the moon.</p><p>"After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data. Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface," the private company wrote on X.</p><h2>The Odysseus lander's odyssey so far</h2><p>Odysseus launched atop a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-elon-musk">SpaceX</a> rocket on February 14, carrying 12 payloads — six of them belonging to private companies and six of them science experiments for NASA.</p><p>The spacecraft traveled 620,000 miles to aim for its destination: a crater in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-scientist-microbial-life-hiding-on-moon-south-pole-2023-6">moon's south pole</a>.</p><p>On Thursday, however, the landing was delayed about 45 minutes after the lander's navigation system failed.</p><p>Intuitive Machines mission controllers scrambled to upload software patches that instructed the lander to instead use a system of navigation lasers that NASA had loaded on board. The NASA laser system was meant to be a demo to see whether the technology even worked — not to guide the landing on its own.</p><p>As Odysseus plummeted to the lunar surface and tilted itself to point the lasers toward the lunar surface to map it out, everything seemed to be going well. But the lander fell out of communication in the final moments of its descent to the lunar surface.</p><p>Intuitive Machines mission control reported that it was receiving pings from the lander, which meant it touched down at about 6:24 p.m. ET, intact and alive.</p><p>It's unclear whether the touchdown issues were related to the navigation-system failure.</p><h2>A race to the moon's south pole</h2><p>The IM-1 mission was designed to get NASA and Intuitive Machines closer to the moon's south pole than anyone had ever been before.</p><p>The US — along with its commercial and international allies — is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-china-race-to-the-moon-photos-launches-2022-11">racing against China and Russia</a> to establish a permanent base in this lunar region.</p> <p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-scientists-discover-moons-hidden-water-stores-2020-10">moon's south pole</a> is so coveted because it contains water frozen in its permanently shadowed craters. In theory, NASA (and anyone else who claims a crater) could use that water to produce fresh rocket fuel from their lunar base.</p><p>With that fuel, astronauts could <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-made-oxygen-out-of-thin-air-on-mars-2023-9">launch toward Mars</a> from the surface of the moon.</p><p>Adding a lunar pitstop to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-seeking-applicants-mars-simulation-habitat-live-year-2024-2">mission to Mars</a> would mean the spacecraft doesn't have to leave Earth with all the fuel required to make it to the red planet.</p><p>Until now,<strong> </strong>only <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-moon-rover-to-collect-first-samples-lunar-south-pole-2023-8">India</a><strong> </strong>had solidly landed in the moon's south-pole region.</p><h2>Landing on the moon is tricky and expensive</h2><p>Landing on the moon is no easy feat. The US isn't the only nation to have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-moon-lander-peregrine-burn-up-earth-atmosphere-satellite-astrobotic-2024-1">tried and failed</a> in previous attempts.</p><p>India found success several years after crashing during its first attempt. Russia's lunar lander was destroyed in a crash in August, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-moon-probe-landed-upside-down-still-works-2024-1">Japan's landed upside down</a> in January.</p><div type="image" title="The IM-1 mission spacecraft floating in space with Earth in the background." height="945" width="1260" msid="107926876" hostid="261"></div><p>"Spaceflight is hard. A million things have to go right, and if one thing goes wrong, you can still have a failure," Trent Martin, the vice president of Intuitive Machines' space systems, said during a NASA press briefing last month.</p><p>In fact, only about 50% of lunar landing missions succeed. While technology has advanced a lot since Apollo, the moon's treacherous terrain and distance from Earth make failure pretty likely.</p><h2>Space exploration goes commercial</h2><p>The IM-1 mission is part of NASA's new deep-space strategy.</p><p>Through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the government space agency can <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-helping-private-companies-build-business-moon-make-lunar-billions-2023-6">outsource spacecraft design to private companies</a>, such as Intuitive Machines.</p><p>The idea is that companies build the hardware, and NASA hitches a ride, saving taxpayer money and giving the agency more options.</p><p>IM-1 wasn't the first time NASA has done this. For its last lunar-landing attempt in January, NASA partnered with the Pittsburgh company Astrobotic Technology to send its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-moon-lander-peregrine-burn-up-earth-atmosphere-satellite-astrobotic-2024-1">Peregrine spacecraft</a> to the moon. But the mission didn't succeed.</p><div type="image" title="Earth photographed by the Intuitive Machines' Odysseus moon lander." height="945" width="1260" msid="107926877" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA has several CLPS missions scheduled over the next two years, including two more with Intuitive Machines.</p><p>In Intuitive Machines' next mission, its spacecraft is scheduled to launch toward the moon's south pole again in 2024, this time to deliver a drill designed to dig down into a ridge near the Shackleton crater to look for ice.</p><p>Even later this year, a different Intuitive Machines spacecraft is scheduled to head to the western edge of the moon's near side. In that mission, it's targeting a specific geographic feature named a "lunar swirl" that has a localized magnetic field.</p><p>So NASA and Intuitive Machines have officially put the new commercial lunar era in swing, and they're just getting started.</p>

NASA is back on the moon &mdash; with the first commercial lunar landing ever

The US space agency, <keyword id="19935155" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="nasa" source="keywords">NASA</keyword>, has pushed back its manned <keyword id="20134050" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="artemis" source="keywords">Artemis</keyword> mission to the <keyword id="19899207" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="moon" source="keywords">Moon</keyword> to 2025 that will send the first woman and first person of colour on the lunar surface.<br /><br />NASA will now target September 2025 for Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole.<br /><br />Artemis IV, the first mission to the Gateway lunar space station, remains on track for 2028.<br /><br />The first mission, Artemis II, was supposed to take place later this year.<br /><br />NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement that they have learned a lot since Artemis I, and the success of these early missions relies on "our commercial and international partnerships to further our reach and understanding of humanity's place in our solar system".<br /><br />"Artemis represents what we can accomplish as a nation - and as a global coalition. When we set our sights on what is hard, together, we can achieve what is great," he added.<br /><br />The space agency said that ensuring crew safety is the primary driver for the Artemis II schedule changes.<br /><br />"As the first Artemis flight test with crew aboard the Orion spacecraft, the mission will test critical environmental control and life support systems required to support astronauts," said NASA.<br /><br />NASA's investigation into unexpected loss of char layer pieces from the spacecraft's heat shield during Artemis I is expected to conclude this spring.<br /><br />The new timeline for Artemis III, said NASA, aligns with the updated schedule for Artemis II, which ensures the agency can incorporate lessons learned from Artemis II into the next mission, and acknowledges development challenges experienced by NASA's industry partners.<br /><br />"We are letting the hardware talk to us so that crew safety drives our decision-making. We will use the Artemis II flight test, and each flight that follows, to reduce risk for future Moon missions," said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.<br /><br />NASA said that it has asked both Artemis human landing system providers -- SpaceX and Blue Origin -- to begin applying knowledge gained in developing their systems as part of their existing contracts toward future variations to potentially deliver large cargo on later missions.<br /><br />"Artemis is a long-term exploration campaign to conduct science at the Moon with astronauts and prepare for future human missions to Mars. That means we must get it right as we develop and fly our foundational systems so that we can safely carry out these missions," said Amit Kshatriya, manager of NASA's Moon to Mars Program Office.<br />

NASA delays mission to take humans back to Moon until 2025

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Axiom Space partnered with Prada to develop a spacesuit.</li><li>The spacesuit is being designed for NASA's Artemis III mission.</li></ul><p>The next time an astronaut walks on the moon, it could be in style.</p><p><a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/axiom-space-x-launch-first-ever-private-astronaut-mission-iss-2022-4">Axiom Space</a> unveiled a Prada-designed spacesuit on Wednesday at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, where Prada is headquartered.</p><p>The Prada suit is intended for use on NASA's Artemis III <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-shrinking-nasa-lunar-missions-artemis-threatened-2024-2">mission to the moon</a>, which, if successful, would be the first crewed landing on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.</p><p>Axiom Space, a Houston-based company cofounded by former NASA employee Michael Suffredini, first <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-prada-luxury-fashion-brand-design-new-spacesuits-astronauts-2023-10">announced its collaboration</a> with the Italian luxury fashion group in October 2023.</p><p>The spacesuit is officially called the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU). It's a long way from the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacesuit-design-history-timeline-changes-nasa-2018-3#mercury-suit-1961-1963-1">first NASA spacesuits</a> that Mercury astronauts wore in the early '60s.</p><div type="image" title="Axiom and Prada spacesuits for NASA Artemis III mission" height="6000" width="4000" msid="114294274" hostid="261" sizebytes="463652"></div><p>"Our elite teams have redefined spacesuit development, establishing new pathways to innovative solutions and applying a state-of-the-art design approach for the AxEMU," Matt Ondler, president of Axiom Space, said in a press release. "We have broken the mold. The Axiom Space-Prada partnership has set a new foundational model for cross-industry collaboration, further expanding what's possible in commercial space."</p><p>The press release said Prada's design and product development team worked alongside Axiom Space engineers to create a spacesuit that could withstand the moon's environment, including <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-dust-is-toxic-2012-7">lunar dust</a>, which can damage human lungs if inhaled, and extreme temperatures.</p><p>"Prada's expertise enabled advanced technologies and innovative sewing methods to bridge the gap between highly engineered functionality and an aesthetically appealing white outer layer, providing astronauts with an increased level of comfort while improving the materials' performance," the press release said.</p><p>The spacesuit would allow astronauts to perform spacewalks for at least eight hours.</p><div type="image" title="Axiom Space and Prada design for a spacesuit for NASA Artemis III mission." height="2160" width="3840" msid="114294276" hostid="261" sizebytes="517104"></div><p>"It includes advanced coatings on the helmet and visor to enhance the astronauts' view of their surroundings, as well as custom gloves made in-house featuring several advancements over the gloves used today," the press release said. "The spacesuit architecture includes life support systems, pressure garments, avionics, and other innovative systems to meet exploration needs and expand scientific opportunities."</p><p>Axiom Space said it worked to improve the spacesuit over the past two years for the Artemis III mission, and it's nearing the final development stage.</p><p>Russell Ralston, executive vice president of extravehicular activity at Axiom Space, told Business Insider that the "critical design review" stage will begin in 2025.</p><p>"Once the AxEMU spacesuit is through NASA's CDR and qualification testing, the spacesuit will be ready for the Artemis III mission," he said in a statement.</p><p>Representatives for Prada did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.</p><h2 id="8af3ebaa-ce92-435e-9490-b0c0c5312f7a"><strong>NASA's Artemis III mission could be the first time a woman and a person of color walks on the moon</strong></h2><p>The Prada spacesuits are being developed for Artemis III, which is scheduled for no earlier than September 2026, according to NASA.</p><p>"Over the course of about 30 days, the Artemis III astronauts will travel to lunar orbit, where two crew members will descend to the surface and spend approximately a week near the South Pole of the Moon conducting new science before returning to lunar orbit to join their crew for the journey back to Earth," the agency says.</p><p>The mission could also be the first time a woman and a person of color walk on the moon.</p><p>Artemis III will follow <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-artemis-missions-first-black-astronaut-woman-canadian-to-moon-2023-4">NASA's Artemis II</a>, which is scheduled to launch no earlier than September 2025. The Artemis II mission could also make history by having the first woman, Black astronaut, and Canadian fly around the moon with NASA.</p><p>Artemis II astronauts will "confirm all of the spacecraft's systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space," according to NASA.</p>

The next time an astronaut steps foot on the moon, it could be in a Prada spacesuit. See the design.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The second moon that Earth has captured in its orbit this month is an asteroid called 2024 PT5.</li><li>Mini-moons like this could be ideal targets for asteroid mining to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-havent-we-been-to-mars-yet-2024-5">send humans deeper into space</a>.</li></ul><p>The <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/second-moon-orbiting-earth-when-why-what-to-know-2024-9 ">second moon that Earth now has for two months</a> may seem like just a fun curiosity, but it's also a sneak peek at a future space industry that could change our global economy.</p><p>An asteroid called 2024 PT5, which normally orbits the sun as part of the Arjuna asteroid belt, was <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-photograph-mini-moon-small-object-in-orbit-2020-2">captured in Earth's orbit</a> on Sunday, according to astronomers' projections. Astronomers expect it to spend about 57 days traveling along a horseshoe-shaped path around Earth before rejoining its asteroid belt.</p><p>For those 57 days, the school-bus-sized <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-impact-simulation-experts-fear-congress-would-delay-action-2024-6">asteroid</a> will be a "natural satellite" of Earth — basically another, temporary moon.</p><div type="image" title="screenshot of asteroid profile page showing illustration of a bumpy candy-corn-shaped grey asteroid in space with a text box labeling it 2024 PT5 and saying its average estimated diameter is 10.76 m" height="1537" width="2864" msid="113817839" hostid="261" sizebytes="68552"></div><p>That makes it economically intriguing. "<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-moon-asteroid-orbiting-sun-alongside-earth-astronomers-discover-2023-6">Mini-moons</a>" like this are ideal targets for mining, according to Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, one of the scientists who charted 2024 PT5's path around our planet.</p><p><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-mining-company-earth-startups-raw-materials-cobalt-gold-platinum-2021-3">Asteroid mining</a> could someday help humans travel further out into the cosmos and extend our presence through the solar system. That's because some asteroids contain valuable metals like iron or platinum, as well as water.</p><p><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-plan-colonize-mars-plan-unrealistic-scientists-explain-2023-10">Elon Musk's vision of a city on Mars</a>, for example, depends on asteroid mining. Temporary moons like 2024 PT5 could be a key stepping stone.</p><p>"Mini-moons are very important for the nascent global <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-helping-private-companies-build-business-moon-make-lunar-billions-2023-6">space economy</a>," Marcos told Business Insider in an email. Because they come so close to Earth and take a sojourn in our orbit, he added, "they are among the objects easier to reach using low-cost missions."</p><h2 id="462c4c69-18b1-4a3f-8e7d-7cb0491d6b39">Asteroids can be worth quintillions</h2><p>Asteroid 2024 PT5 may not be worth much, since scientists think it's made of basalt.</p><p>It's basically "a giant boulder," Teddy Kareta, a planetary scientist at the Lowell Observatory, told Business Insider.</p><p>But some asteroids contain so much metal that they're <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-visit-psyche-asteroid-worth-more-than-entire-world-economy-2023-10">worth more than our entire global economy</a>.</p><p>Take Psyche, for example, an asteroid that NASA is sending a spacecraft to for scientific study, since the agency believes it to be the core of a long-dead planet.</p><p>Psyche's metal-rich makeup — mostly iron and nickel — makes it worth an estimated $100 quintillion if it were here on Earth.</p><div type="image" title="graphic of what the asteroid is thought to look like" height="900" width="1600" msid="113817842" hostid="261" sizebytes="175866"></div><p>Some asteroids even have precious metals like platinum, gold, and cobalt.</p><p>Nobody has mined an asteroid yet, though <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-video-osiris-rex-probe-landing-on-asteroid-kicking-dust-2020-10">NASA punched one</a><strong> </strong>in 2020 to grab scientific samples from it.</p><p>Some startups are trying to figure out how to start mining space rocks, and do it in a cost-effective way. Flying to an asteroid isn't cheap.</p><p>One of them, called <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-mining-startup-has-booked-its-first-test-mission-spacex-2022-6">AstroForge, has launched a small probe with SpaceX</a>, though the spacecraft wasn't able to conduct the testing they'd planned, according to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.space.com/asteroid-mining-astroforge-docking-mission-2025">Space.com</a>. The company is now planning two more missions, which it hopes will culminate in its first landing on a metallic asteroid in 2025.</p><h2 id="e5b0dd4a-bb61-4c4d-a49c-2d9e9a2960a9">Pit stops on the way to Mars</h2><p>Long-distance <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-invest-mars-pulsed-plasma-rocket-shorten-space-time-travel-2024-7">deep-space missions</a>, especially if they're carrying humans and cargo, will have a fuel problem.</p><p>Fuel is heavy, so the less of it you have to load onto a spacecraft the better. On the long flight to Mars or other planets, asteroids could become gas stations.</p><p>That's because <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/506/1/L6/6298231?login=false">research</a> <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JE005584">suggests</a> that many asteroids in Earth's neighborhood are rich in water, which can be mined and split into its elementary components — hydrogen and oxygen, both of which are critical for making rocket fuel.</p><p>Mini-moons are perfect places to start, some scientists think, because of their proximity to Earth but also because of how small they are.</p><p>It takes an immense amount of rocket fuel to escape Earth's powerful gravitational pull. But little asteroids don't have much gravity, making it easy to leapfrog off of them.</p><p>"It only takes a puff of fuel to leave the mini-moon and head back towards Earth," Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at MIT, previously told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/undiscovered-minimoons-may-orbit-earth-could-they-help-us-become-an-interplanetary-species">Live Science</a>.</p><h2 id="bf8bc193-7a0a-4a09-9d9c-2c6ac7e8d411">Mini-moon missions at the ready</h2><p>One problem with mini-moons is that scientists sometimes don't see them coming until a few weeks before they're captured in our planet's orbit.</p><p>Asteroid 2024 PT5, for example, was first identified as a mini-moon in early September and will only be in Earth's orbit for about 57 days.</p><p>That's a tight timeline for preparing and launching a mining mission. For any asteroid, "you need to learn enough about it to know whether it's worth sending a rocket up," Kareta said.</p><p>Asteroid-mining companies can work around that by having mining spacecraft ready in Earth's orbit, waiting for the right space rock to zoom by, Marcos said.</p><p>"Either if you are thinking about collecting mineral samples for research or starting a space mining venture, mini-moons are your best bet to get your business off the ground," he said.</p>

Mini-moons like the one Earth just captured could be huge business opportunities

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intuitive-machines-im-1-odysseus-moon-lunar-landing-mission-nasa-2024-2">Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft landed on the moon</a> for NASA with complications on Thursday.</li><li>NASA tried a different moon landing with another company in January. That ended in flames.</li></ul><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">NASA returned to the moon</a> for the first time in more than 50 years on Thursday, with help from Houston-based company Intuitive Machines.</p><p>The uncrewed Odysseus lunar lander, built and operated by Intuitive Machines, became the first commercial spacecraft ever to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-moon-landings-on-lunar-south-pole-crashed-2023-8">land on the moon</a> on Thursday, when it touched down on the lunar surface at about 6:23 p.m. EST.</p><p>But in that very moment, it suddenly stopped communicating with mission controllers. The control room on NASA's livestream looked tense.</p><p>You can watch this historic and nail-biting moment in the video below.</p><p>Though the lander sent pings to Earth that indicated it was still alive and intact, relieving some of the suspense, mission controllers were still unable to receive data from the lander about its status.</p><p>"We're not dead yet," mission director Tim Crain said on NASA's livestream of the landing. "It's faint, but it's there."</p><p>Still, Intuitive Machines and NASA declared success, and Crain said all signs pointed to a communications outage — but a live lander.</p><p>"What an outstanding effort. I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the surface and we are transmitting. Welcome to the moon," Stephen Altemus, Intuitive Machines CEO, told the control room.</p><div type="image" title="Earth photographed by the Intuitive Machines' Odysseus moon lander." height="945" width="1260" msid="107895897" hostid="261"></div><p>The landing helps catapult the US into the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-china-race-to-the-moon-photos-launches-2022-11">21st-century space race</a>.</p><h2><strong>The US had fallen behind</strong></h2><p>Despite being the first to land on the moon in 1969, until now <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">NASA hadn't returned anything to the lunar surface</a> in the 21st century.</p><div type="image" title="the moon bright round blotchy cratered disc in the blackness of space" height="1986" width="1986" msid="107700645" hostid="261"></div><p>Unlike <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-bill-nelson-warns-china-claim-moon-territory-lunar-resources-2023-1">China</a>, India, and Japan, the US had not put anything on the moon in more than 50 years.</p><p>NASA made an attempt in January, collaborating with the company <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-moon-lander-peregrine-burn-up-earth-atmosphere-satellite-astrobotic-2024-1">Astrobotic to launch the Peregrine</a> mission to the moon.</p><p>But the lander never made it because a faulty valve caused a fuel leak that forced them to call off the mission mid-flight.</p><p>Luckily, NASA already had its next attempt lined up.</p><p>Through a $118 million contract, the agency sponsored Intuitive Machines to launch its first mission, called IM-1, toward the moon early Thursday.</p><div type="image" title="falcon 9 white and black rocket climbing in the blue sky with bright flame extending below its engines" height="1500" width="2480" msid="107700648" hostid="261"></div><p>The Nova-C, dubbed Odysseus, is a hexagonal cylinder about 14 feet tall and 5 feet wide. If it is still functional and restores communications, NASA will get a chance to study the lunar surface with the six science instruments it has aboard, including a mini radio telescope test.</p><div type="image" title="The IM-1 mission spacecraft floating in space with Earth in the background." height="945" width="1260" msid="107895898" hostid="261"></div><p>With a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-sls-mega-rocket-unaffordable-costs-hit-20-billion-2023-9">few exceptions</a>, this is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-helping-private-companies-build-business-moon-make-lunar-billions-2023-6">NASA's model for future deep-space exploration</a>: contract commercial entities to do the hard engineering, and then hitch a ride with its science.</p><p>But this strategy had not yet put anything on the lunar surface for NASA — until Thursday. Still, a lot could have gone wrong and it's not clear what exactly happened.</p><h2>The moon's graveyard of failed spacecraft is growing</h2><div type="image" title="New crater in the moon thought to be site of Luna-25 lander crash." height="1100" width="1100" msid="107673669" hostid="261"></div><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-india-moon-landing-cost-cheap-compared-to-nasa-russia-2023-8">Nailing a moon landing</a> is extremely difficult. India only achieved the feat a few years after crashing on its first attempt, and a few days after Russia attempted and crashed.</p><p>Japan joined India in the ranks of 21st-century moon-goers in January, but its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-moon-probe-landed-upside-down-still-works-2024-1">spacecraft landed upside-down</a>.</p><div type="image" title="moon surface grey rocky slope with yellow space probe balanced on its nose" height="480" width="640" msid="107673670" hostid="261"></div><p>Even that was a sort of redemption from a previous failure. Less than a year ago, the Japanese private company<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-company-ispace-fears-moon-probe-crash-landed-2023-4"> ispace tried and failed its own moon landing</a>.</p><p>So many spacecraft have crashed on the moon that ispace wasn't even the first non-government enterprise to do it. In 2019, Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL also crashed a spacecraft it was trying to gently lower to the lunar surface.</p><p>"Spaceflight is hard. A million things have to go right, and if one thing goes wrong, you can still have a failure," Trent Martin, vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines, said in a NASA press briefing last month.</p><p>"I can't say that we've solved every problem," he added, "but we certainly have looked at, as much as we can, the lessons that we've learned over the last four or five years as various missions have attempted to land on the moon."</p><h2>Odysseus landed in the moon's coveted south pole region</h2><p>What's more, NASA and Intuitive Machines aimed closer to the moon's south pole than anyone's ever gotten. The area is coveted real estate as space-faring nations race to establish permanent bases on the moon.</p><div type="image" title="moon astronauts artemis" height="2160" width="3840" msid="107673671" hostid="261"></div><p>That's because <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-made-oxygen-out-of-thin-air-on-mars-2023-9">astronauts could launch toward Mars</a> from the surface of the moon — if they can mine the water frozen in permanently shadowed craters around the lunar south pole.</p><p>In theory, with that water NASA (or China or Russia) could produce fresh rocket fuel on-site. But lunar territory is first-come first-serve.</p><p>Until now, only <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-moon-rover-to-collect-first-samples-lunar-south-pole-2023-8">India had landed in the lunar south pole region</a>.</p>

Watch the video of Intuitive Machines and NASA landing on the moon and hitting a snag, with $118 million on the line

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA's Juno mission found that Jupiter's icy moon Europa produces 1,000 tons of oxygen every 24 hours.</li><li>It's enough to keep a million people breathing for a day but is much less than previously thought.</li></ul><p>About 400 million miles away, floating in deep space, is a water world called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/juno-snaps-new-images-flyby-past-jupiters-icy-moon-europa-2022-9">Europa</a> that produces 1,000 tons of oxygen every 24 hours. That's enough oxygen to keep a million people alive for a day, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-juno-mission-measures-oxygen-production-at-europa">NASA reported</a> this week.</p><p>However, these new estimates, published in the peer-reviewed journal <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=2b2af1c3fb9f2cf2557d55cb451349e12706b76d91ded14f851cd4485ee0b707&amp;postID=65eb72bb894bac29c419ee82&amp;postSlug=oxygen-europa-life-surface-ocean-subsurface-earth-juno-mission-jupiter-2024-3&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41550-024-02206-x">Nature Astronomy</a>, aren't meant to determine how many people could inhabit this moon of Jupiter. They're helping scientists figure out whether, or not, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-jupiter-oceanic-moon-europa-radioactive-glow-2020-11">Europa hosts life of its own</a>.</p><p>"We think that Europa is the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/europa-moon-may-have-an-earth-like-ocean-2016-5">most likely place</a> to look beyond Earth for life today," said Curt Niebur, NASA's lead scientist for outer planet exploration who wasn't involved with the study.</p><div type="image" title="Europa" height="1125" width="1275" msid="108340506" hostid="261" sizebytes="74676"></div><p>If life forms exist on Europa, they might look like microbes, or perhaps something more complex, <a target="_blank" href="https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/europa/facts/">according to NASA</a>. But they wouldn't be visible from the surface, which is a frozen desert.</p><p>They'd most likely exist in the moon's vast underground ocean that may contain as much as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/water-space-volume-planets-moons-2016-10">twice the amount of water as Earth.</a></p><p>While <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-moon-europa-ocean-water-plume-evidence-2018-5">water is one key ingredient for life</a>, as we know it, it's not the only one. There's a laundry list of other chemicals that scientists are looking for — oxygen being one of them.</p><div type="image" title="Diagram of Europa's inner structure." height="665" width="700" msid="108340507" hostid="261" sizebytes="41178"></div><p>Now, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/juno-jupiter-engine-safe-mode-issues-2016-10">NASA's Juno spacecraft</a>, which is currently flying around Jupiter and its moons, has taken the most precise estimate of Europa's oxygen production to date. And it turns out to be a lot less than we thought.</p><p>The latest estimate of 1,000 tons of oxygen every 24 hours is more than 86 times less than some previous estimates. And this new data may call Europa's habitability into question.</p><h2>How Europa produces oxygen</h2><p>Oxygen production looks very different on Europa than on Earth. Whereas <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-amazon-rainforest-is-important-life-support-is-burning-2019-8">Earth gets its oxygen from photosynthesis</a>, Europa's is a result of its parent planet Jupiter.</p><p>Jupiter <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasas-juno-has-completed-its-five-year-journey-to-jupiter-heres-what-the-spacecraft-will-teach-us-about-the-gas-giant-2016-7">emits powerful radiation</a> that showers Europa with high-energy particles. These particles then interact with frozen water ice (H2O) on the moon's surface.</p><div type="image" title="jupiter radiation belt" height="552" width="1111" msid="108340508" hostid="261" sizebytes="10282"></div><p>The interaction splits the H2O molecules apart into hydrogen and oxygen gas. But where that oxygen goes is the big question. Some of it may get stuck in the ice, some may escape to space, and some may travel downward into Europa's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-water-ice-volume-versus-planets-moons-2016-11">subsurface ocean</a>.</p><p>If enough oxygen reaches underground, that would mean Europa's ocean has one of the critical ingredients for life as we know it. "But that's a big question mark for us," since the oxygen can end up in so many different places, Niebur said.</p><div type="image" title="europa ocean" height="610" width="768" msid="108340509" hostid="261" sizebytes="53308"></div><p>What <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stunning-images-photos-jupiter-nasa-juno-mission">NASA's Juno mission</a> has done is shed more light on the total amount of oxygen that Europa's surface generates. It's still not clear, however, how much, if any, seeps into the underground ocean.</p><h2>Measuring oxygen on Europa</h2><p>To measure how much oxygen Europa's surface generates, scientists used the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument on board Juno.</p><p>JADE was designed to measure charged particles in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-map-shows-jupiter-baffling-heat-may-come-from-auroras-2022-10">Jupiter's auroral regions</a>. But when Juno flew by Europa in September 2022, JADE successfully measured the charged particles shed from the moon's atmosphere for the very first time.</p><p>Using the JADE data, scientists estimated the total amount of hydrogen (not oxygen) gas in Europa's thin atmosphere. Since there is one oxygen atom for every two hydrogen atoms in a water molecule, scientists could use the hydrogen gas data to then calculate the amount of oxygen generated on the surface.</p><div type="image" title="Graphic of Europa" height="1272" width="1000" msid="108340510" hostid="261" sizebytes="144114"></div><p>"This has really refined and narrowed down our understanding of how much oxygen is made in the surface," said study lead author Jamey Szalay, a space physics researcher at Princeton University.</p><p>"But we don't know how much of it leaves the surface and how much of it makes its way to the ocean," Szalay added. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-plans-to-find-alien-life-next-decade-2019-11#nasa-is-planning-to-take-a-closer-look-at-that-ocean-with-the-europa-clipper-mission-which-could-launch-as-early-as-2023-8">NASA's next Europa mission, Clipper</a>, could bring us closer to answering that question.</p><h2>An ongoing search for the possibility of life</h2><p>NASA's Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to launch in October 2024. Its primary objective is to determine whether or not Europa is habitable.</p><div type="image" title="Clipper orbiting Europa" height="7352" width="8352" msid="108340511" hostid="261" sizebytes="1561178"></div><p>Clipper will be equipped with instruments that should help <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-underwater-rover-hunt-alien-life-on-ocean-worlds-2019-11">reveal Europa's inner structure</a>, such as its subsurface radar. With this tool, NASA scientists will peer down tens of miles below the crust to identify features that could help determine whether oxygen is reaching the subsurface ocean, Niebur told BI.</p><p>"Clipper is an incredibly exciting mission, and it has important science objectives that will likely revolutionize our understanding of the ice shell, the subsurface ocean, and how they interact with each other," Szalay said.</p><div type="image" title="Europa Clipper" height="5829" width="7591" msid="108340512" hostid="261" sizebytes="2823370"></div><p>While finding out whether Europa's subsurface ocean contains oxygen, or not, would improve our understanding of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-water-vapor-jupiter-moon-europa-2019-11">the moon's habitability</a>, it won't automatically confirm whether life exists, or could exist, on Europa.</p><p>"The amount of oxygen available on Europa is not a binary switch you flip to decide whether or not life could be present," Niebur explained. </p><p>He pointed out that life existed on Earth for about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-rotation-slowing-helped-bacteria-produce-oxygen-2021-8">1.5 billion years without oxygen</a>. If it could happen here, it could happen on this faraway moon, too.</p><p>As for the Juno mission, Szalay will continue working through the data they retrieved during this Europa flyby.</p><p>"For years to come, we're going to be digging through this and learning everything we can," he said.</p>

Jupiter's moon Europa generates enough oxygen to keep a million people alive for a day, NASA says 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists have known for years that the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-moon-is-shrinking-like-raisin-producing-moonquakes-2019-5">moon is shriveling</a> like a grape, causing moonquakes.</li><li>A new study said moonquakes in the south pole could put astronauts at risk from landslides.</li></ul><p>NASA has known for years that the moon is shrinking. In 2019, for example, scientists estimated the moon had contracted by about 150 feet over the last several hundred million years.</p><p>The moon's interior is cooling, and its brittle crust is cracking, creating "thrust faults" where one piece slides over another, which can trigger <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/indias-moon-lander-detects-signs-of-possible-moonquake-2023-9">moonquakes</a>.</p><p>That was all common knowledge in the scientific community at least five years ago.</p><p>However, a new study published in the peer-reviewed <a target="_blank" href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad1332"><u>Planetary Science Journal</u></a> shows some of these faults are near potential landing sites for NASA's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-launching-artemis-mega-rocket-orion-spaceship-around-the-moon-2022-8"><u>Artemis III</u></a> mission and could be an issue for long-term lunar settlements.</p><h2>Danger at the lunar south pole</h2><p>Artemis III plans to land astronauts near the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7"><u>moon's south pole</u></a>, which contains water ice, among other vital resources. It would be the first time a human has set foot on the lunar surface since 1972.</p><p>Even small tremors at the moon's south pole could trigger landslides, according to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nasa.gov/earth/moon/shrinking-moon-causing-moonquakes-and-faults-near-lunar-south-pole/">NASA press release</a>, which may be dangerous to astronauts.</p><p>That said, "short-term missions like Artemis III are not likely a risk because strong shallow moonquakes are infrequent," Tom Watters, lead author of the paper, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newsweek.com/moon-shrinking-moonquakes-danger-lunar-missions-nasa-1864336"><u>told Newsweek</u></a>.</p><p>The bigger risk is to long-term settlements like those that NASA envisions to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-artemis-humans-to-live-moon-by-2030-says-official-2022-11">happen by 2030</a>.</p><p>"We're going to be sending people down to the surface and they're going to be living on that surface and doing science," the lead of NASA's Orion lunar spacecraft program, told the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63688229">BBC in 2022</a>.</p><p>As the moon continues to slowly shrink, it will lead to new thrust faults and this "should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the moon," Watters said in a recent statement.</p><h2>Moonquakes can seem stronger than earthquakes</h2><p>Watters and other researchers created a model that predicts moonquakes could cause landslides along the walls of the region's Shackleton crater at the lunar south pole.</p><p>Asteroids and comets have also broken up the lunar surface, Nicholas Schmerr, a co-author on the study, <a target="_blank" href="https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/Nicholas-Schmerr-moon-shrinking-causing-landslides-and-instability-lunar-south-pole"><u>said in a statement</u></a>.</p><p>"Loose sediments make it very possible for shaking and landslides to occur," he said.</p><div type="image" title="apollo astronaut moon 1971" height="3025" width="4096" msid="107338487" hostid="261" sizebytes="1122390"></div><p>The researchers believe slipping thrust faults triggered a series of moonquakes between 1969 and 1977. During their missions, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apollo-astronauts-50th-moon-landing-anniversary-photos-2019-4">Apollo astronauts</a> placed seismometers on the moon that detected the quakes.</p><p>While these seismic events were relatively mild — the largest was a magnitude 5.0 — by Earth's standards, the moon's lack of gravity makes them seem worse, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/world/moon-shrinking-moonquakes-south-pole-scn/index.html"><u>Watters told CNN.</u></a></p><p>"That kind of shaking can really start throwing things around in a low G environment," he said.</p><h2>NASA's moon landings are already in jeopardy</h2><div type="image" title="illustration shows spaceship with solar panel wings flying past the far side of the moon with earth in the distance" height="1080" width="1440" msid="107338488" hostid="261" sizebytes="94360"></div><p>In January, NASA announced it had <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-moon-flight-landing-delay-pushed-back-2024-1"><u>pushed back</u></a> its mission to orbit the moon, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-artemis-missions-first-black-astronaut-woman-canadian-to-moon-2023-4">Artemis II</a>, from late 2024 to September 2025.</p><p>The agency made the decision after the private space company Astrobotic's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vulcan-peregrine-us-mission-first-land-moon-astrobotic-human-remains-2024-1"><u>Peregrine lunar lander</u></a> had to abandon its moon mission due to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/peregrine-lunar-lander-no-chance-land-moon-fuel-leak-2024-1"><u>fuel leak</u></a> shortly after launching from Earth.</p><p>The setback will likely also delay NASA's later missions and the agency's aspirations to build a permanent base at the moon's south pole. So, at least for now, NASA has more pressing matters to concern itself with than moonquakes and lunar landslides. </p>

Yes, the moon is shrinking but that's not the disturbing news scientists discovered that could threaten future NASA missions

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Earth is getting a second moon, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-moon-asteroid-orbiting-sun-alongside-earth-astronomers-discover-2023-6">a mini-moon asteroid</a> called 2024 PT5, on September 29.</li><li>This asteroid from the Arjuna asteroid belt will follow a horseshoe path around Earth for 57 days.</li></ul><p>Earth is about to pluck a second moon from an asteroid belt — but we only get this <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-photograph-mini-moon-small-object-in-orbit-2020-2">mini-moon</a> for 57 days.</p><p>It's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/potentially-hazardous-asteroids-fly-by-earth-this-week-watch-live-2024-6">an asteroid</a> about the size of a school bus, at 35 feet long, and it has a typical, un-snazzy asteroid name: 2024 PT5.</p><p>Earth is poised to pick up this<strong> </strong>hitchhiker from the nearby Arjuna <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-visit-psyche-asteroid-worth-more-than-entire-world-economy-2023-10">asteroid belt</a> on September 29.</p><p>According to a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ad781f">paper</a> published in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society this month, the 2024 PT5 asteroid will then be in the grasp of Earth's gravity, following a horseshoe-like <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-shows-moon-orbits-barycenter-below-earth-surface-2021-3">path around our planet</a> until November 25, when it will return to an orbit around the sun.</p><div type="image" title="screenshot of asteroid profile page showing illustration of a bumpy candy-corn-shaped grey asteroid in space with a text box labeling it 2024 PT5 and saying its average estimated diameter is 10.76 m" height="1537" width="2864" msid="113609379" hostid="261" sizebytes="68552"></div><p>"You may say that if a true <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-artificial-star-earth-orbit-help-astronomy-science-calibrate-telescope-2024-6">satellite</a> is like a customer buying goods inside a store, objects like 2024 PT5 are window shoppers," Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, the paper's lead author, told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.space.com/earth-mini-moon-asteroid-2024-pt5">Space.com</a>.</p><p>The asteroid poses no threat to Earth.</p><h2 id="2a322604-0537-4de0-b3ff-12eba524a529">You'll probably only see the mini-moon in photos</h2><p>This mini-moon is nothing like <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">our real moon</a>. It's super mini. Forget about spotting it with your naked eye or even a pair of binoculars.</p><p>In fact, according to Dan Bartlett, an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tried-see-green-comet-fail-2023-2">astrophotographer in California</a>, asteroid 2024 PT5 is so faint that it's "well beyond the limits of most of the best amateur telescopes."</p><p>That won't stop him from trying to photograph it, though.</p><p>From his <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/darkest-skies-by-state-watch-space-events-stargazing">dark-skies </a>vantage point in the middle of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Bartlett thinks he might be able to catch the asteroid by imaging all night long with his sophisticated telescope equipment on an extra-dark night when the main moon is not in the sky.</p><p>"<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-photograph-full-moon-according-to-astrophotographers-top-tips-2024-9">The image probably won't look like much</a> but you never know until you try," Bartlett told BI in an email.</p><p>However, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/images-show-james-webb-space-telescope-stronger-sharper-than-hubble-2022-7">telescopes</a> used by professional astronomers should be able to image 2024 PT5 easily, according to Marcos.</p><div type="image" title="four pixelated blurry images of white dots in distant space with one long dot circled in purple in the center" height="928" width="936" msid="113609377" hostid="261" sizebytes="78262"></div><p>So stay tuned for pictures.</p><h2 id="90a35d03-b346-44fa-a648-63841dcaf537">When the mini-moon returns</h2><p>The asteroid won't make its closest <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-driver-asks-nasa-save-earth-from-world-ending-asteroids-2023-3">approach to Earth</a> until after it loses mini-moon status, though.</p><p>On January 8, 2025, according to NASA, it will skim past Earth at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers).</p><p>For reference, the main<strong> </strong>moon (the big one you see in the sky at night) is, on average, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10">about 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away from us</a>. It will probably still be impossible to see with binoculars or the naked eye.</p><p>After that, our temporary moonlet won't fly by again until 2055.</p><p>It's not our first mini-moon and it won't be the last. Another asteroid, called 2022 NX1, briefly fell into Earth's orbit in 2022. Astronomers declared it to be a mini-moon, or a "short-term natural satellite," and determined that it would return again in 2051.</p><p>The situation brings Bartlett to a simple conclusion, which you may have reached too: "Space is neat," he said.</p>

Earth is about to get a 2nd moon, for 57 days only. Here's what you need to know.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>For the first time in over 20 years, NASA had a close encounter with Io, Jupiter's moon.</li><li>Io is home to roughly 400 active volcanoes, some much larger than any here on Earth.</li></ul><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/juno-spacecraft-takes-infrared-io-image-jupiter-moon-lava-2022-12">NASA's Juno spacecraft</a> snapped detailed images of the most volcanically active world in our solar system on Saturday. During this close fly-by, the spacecraft spotted plumes of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-volcanic-explosion-on-jupiters-moon-io-2014-3">volcanic activity erupting</a> from Io's surface in real-time.</p><p>This encounter was the second in a set of two <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-new-horizons-spacecraft-completes-ultima-thule-mission-2018-12">close fly-bys</a> designed to provide new insight into the fiery phenomena that lurk beneath Io's surface.</p> <p>They are humanity's closest encounters with Io in the last 22 years, surveying it at a distance of 930 miles. Here are the striking first images.</p><h2>A 'tortured moon'</h2><p>Io is a "tortured moon" being pushed and pulled by competing gravitational forces.</p><p>On one end is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-lava-from-moon-volcanoes-creates-jupiters-powerful-aurora-lights-2022-2">Jupiter's</a> herculean mass tugging it toward the planet, and on another are two neighboring moons, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/juno-snaps-new-images-flyby-past-jupiters-icy-moon-europa-2022-9">Europa</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-moon-ganymede-nasa-hubble-telescope-finds-water-vapor-2021-7">Ganymede</a>, said NASA's Juno mission Principal Investigator Scott Bolton.</p><p>As a result, this gravitational tug-of-war causes friction across the entire world as it's pulled one way and then another. The friction heats Io up, which is the process that drives it's volcanic activity.</p><p>Io has about 400 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/volcano-eruption-astronauts-saw-from-space-2019-6">active volcanoes</a> on its surface. You can some erupting gas into space in the close-up image below that Juno snapped on February 3:</p><div type="image" title="Plumes of volcanic gas erupt from the surface of Io" height="560" width="1000" msid="107466940" hostid="261" sizebytes="11524"></div><p>While Io is only slightly <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-moon-io-on-earth-and-north-america-2016-1">larger than Earth's moon</a>, its volcanoes are far larger than anything here and can spew fountains of boiling-hot lava dozens of miles in the air, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/io/facts/">NASA</a>.</p><p>For example, its largest volcano, Loki Patera, is roughly twice the size of Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth.</p><div type="image" title="An infrared map showing volcanos on Io" height="859" width="1724" msid="107466942" hostid="261" sizebytes="25958"></div><p>The Juno spacecraft has orbited Jupiter every 38 days since 2016. Now in an extended mission phase, the spacecraft will explore the full Jovian system — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-jupiter-juno-first-inside-look-rings-2017-5">Jupiter and its rings</a> and moons — through September 2025.</p><div type="image" title="Jupiter's moon, Io" height="1600" width="1600" msid="107466943" hostid="261" sizebytes="130804"></div><p>With these fly-bys, Juno mission scientists hope to gain a deeper, more detailed understanding of what drives Io's explosive activity. Currently, there are two competing theories.</p><p>Either Io's intense volcanism is due to a global magma ocean churning beneath the surface, or to the moon's solid core of hot metal. Perhaps the answer will reveal itself in the coming months as scientists dig into the data.</p>

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