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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>The Parker Solar Probe picked up crucial clues about our star as it flew through a coronal mass ejection.</li><li>NASA's probe is circling the sun, getting ever closer as it dives into its atmosphere. </li></ul><p>A NASA solar probe flew straight through a powerful eruption from the sun, and in doing so, found a key clue to how solar storms form.</p><p>During the event, the Parker Solar Probe managed to capture footage from "one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded," <a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe/2023/09/15/parker-observes-powerful-coronal-mass-ejection-vacuum-up-interplanetary-dust/">NASA</a> said.</p><p>The findings could help us better understand these huge solar explosions, which can bring <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-storm-earth-northern-southern-lights-auroras-how-to-see-2023-4">beautiful auroras</a> to our planet, but also wreak havoc on Earth's satellites and communications.</p><p>The <span>cost of a severe solar storm to the US economy could reach up to $10 billion a day, according to </span><a target="_blank" href="https://www.gmu.edu/news/2023-12/podcast-ep-54-are-we-headed-internet-apocalypse"><span>Professor Peter Becker of George Mason University.</span></a></p><p>"Understanding turbulence is key in achieving a deeper understanding of CME evolution and kinematics," said Evangelos Paouris a solar physicist at George Mason University and an author of a study analyzing the footage.</p><p>The analysis looked at footage captured by NASA's Parker Solar probe when it flew inside a coronal mass ejection in 2021.</p><p>Within this footage, scientists spotted characteristic structures called Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (KHIs) inside the CME.</p><p>KHIs are structures that appear when two rapidly moving fluids interact with each other. This creates a repeated pattern of swirls, appearing almost like a hand drawing of waves on the ocean.</p><p>On Earth, they can be occasionally spotted in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-cloud-formation-virginia-photo-viral-2019-6">rare fluctus clouds</a> in the sky.</p><p>Inside CMEs, they are slightly more difficult to notice. That's partly why scientists have long hypothesized they existed inside the solar explosions but had never been able to see them.</p><p>While the KHIs may not appear to many of us, scientists see them clearly in the 2021 footage from the Parker Solar Probe.</p><p>"We never anticipated that KHI structures could develop to large enough scales to be imaged in visible light," said Angelos Vourlidas, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who worked on the probe.</p><p>This information can help scientists better understand how the CMEs propagate and interact with solar winds, said Paouris. And that's important.</p><p>CMEs don't stay confined to the sun. When they explode, they release a burst of charged particles that can come barreling through space to hit the Earth.</p><div type="image" title="coronal mass ejection sun soho nasa" height="896" width="900" msid="109007297" hostid="261"></div><p>The issue is that these charged particles <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-lost-starlink-satellites-orbit-geomagnetic-solar-storm-space-launch-2022-2">can mess with satellites</a> and disrupt radio communication.</p><p>In combination with other solar events, CMEs could also contribute to creating a very <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-solar-storm-blast-power-grids-chance-higher-next-years-2023-8">powerful, but also very rare, solar storm</a>, the likes of which we haven't seen for decades. With the world's reliance on electronics today, it's still not clear how that kind of solar storm could affect our infrastructure.</p><p>The problem is that CMEs are highly unpredictable, and they can take as little as a few hours to reach the Earth. So knowing how better to predict them and anticipate these types of events is crucial.</p><div type="image" title="parker solar probe sun wind particles heat corona space mission illustration nasa goddard space flight center" height="1311" width="2327" msid="109007298" hostid="261"></div><p>Scientists expect to learn more about the sun as the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-parker-solar-probe-heat-temperature-radiation-survival-2018-8">Parker Solar Probe</a> continues its investigations. The spacecraft became the first human-made object to fly through the solar corona in 2021 and is circling the sun closer in each orbit.</p><p>It uses 4.5-inch-thick carbon composite heat shield to protect it from the intense heat of the sun, withstanding temperatures up to nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.</p><p>By the end of 2024, it is expected to make its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/helio-year-sun-solar-system-probe-eclipse-events-2024-1">closest approach</a> to the sun, zooming about 3.8 million miles from its surface.</p><p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0004-637X">study </a>was published in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal on March 27.</p>

A NASA probe flew straight through an explosion from the sun, and found a key clue to how solar storms form

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronal-hole-on-sun-blasts-solar-wind-toward-earth-2023-3">The sun</a> has a big year in 2024, starting with a total solar eclipse across the US.</li><li>As the sun builds to maximum activity, watch out for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/northern-lights-sky-friday-us-solar-winds-giant-hole-sun-2023-3">the northern lights</a> too.</li></ul><p>The sun was showing off all last year, with dramatic eruptions, sunspots, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/second-giant-coronal-hole-sun-solar-winds-space-weather-aurora-2023-3">giant "holes,"</a> and even a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-video-solar-tornado-plasma-2023-3">14-earths-high tornado of plasma</a>. But 2024 may be our star's biggest year yet.</p><p>That's what giddy <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sun-polar-vortex-video-from-solar-plasma-break-2023-2">NASA</a> scientists told reporters at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December. In true NASA fashion, they're calling it the "heliophysics big year."</p><div type="image" title="solar flare" height="627" width="1089" msid="107672113" hostid="261" sizebytes="43108"></div><p>One of the main events this year will be a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-2024-total-solar-eclipse-cool-best-special-nasa-2024-1">historically cool total solar eclipse crossing the US in April</a>. It's estimated up to 7.4 million people will travel to the path of totality to witness the rare event.</p><p>Another exciting event involves NASA's prime solar probe, which is set to skim <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sunspots-15-times-size-of-earth-solar-storm-into-view-2023-11">the sun's surface</a> in December, flying closer than any previous spacecraft.</p><div type="image" title="total solar eclipse 2019" height="1290" width="1960" msid="107188970" hostid="261"></div><p>Meanwhile, the Northern and Southern Lights are sure to have an impressive year, as well.</p><p>Already, we've seen beautiful aurora reach as far south as Arizona within the last year. And as<strong> </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sun-more-active-solar-storms-auroras-power-outages-grounded-flights-2023-2">stormy activity on the sun,</a> which helps spark aurora worldwide, is set to increase, we could continue to see the Northern Lights illuminate skies across the US at unusually low latitudes.</p><p>For viewers in Australia, New Zealand, and South America, the Southern Lights (aurora australis) will surely make spectacular displays too.</p><div type="image" title="ribbons of green pink purple northern lights stretch across the night sky above homes and lights of a sprawling town" height="1500" width="2250" msid="107188973" hostid="261"></div><p>It will be about 11 years — a full <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/next-solar-maximum-2025-what-expect-cycle-2023-4">solar cycle</a> — before the aurora is so active again.</p><p>"<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-maximum-could-sooner-than-expected-2023-6">The sun</a> touches everything, and we are challenging you to experience the sun in as many ways as possible," Kelly Korreck, NASA's program manager for the upcoming eclipse, said during the AGU roundtable.</p><h2>The sun's big year kicks off with a total eclipse</h2><div type="image" title="A cheerleader smiles as she looks up at the sky holding eclipse glasses." height="1333" width="2000" msid="107672115" hostid="261" sizebytes="202708"></div><p>While the rest of us put on our <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-where-when-see-solar-eclipse-united-states-nasa-map-2023-3">eclipse glasses</a> or look out for the pink and green ribbons of the aurora, astronomers will be busy at work. This year's solar events are a huge scientific opportunity.</p><p>For example, NASA is launching three rockets during the April total solar eclipse, loaded with instruments to study how the sudden darkness changes our upper atmosphere.</p><p>A total solar eclipse offers scientists a unique opportunity to observe the corona — the outer layer of the sun's atmosphere. The corona is over 100 times hotter than the sun's surface, but scientists can't explain why and it's one of the biggest mysteries in our solar system. Because the moon blocks the main disc of the sun during an eclipse, only the corona is visible.</p><p>NASA's Parker Solar Probe and the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter will also be watching the eclipse from two different vantage points in space, as they orbit close to the sun. That extra data can help scientists get 3D observations of the corona, as well as validate measurements from Earth-based observatories.</p><p>That's just one fleeting moment of the sun's big year. Throughout 2024, as solar activity builds, countless observatories and physicists will be watching closely.</p><h2>The sun will get more and more active</h2><div type="image" title="X-class solar flare erupting off the sun." height="747" width="800" msid="107188979" hostid="261"></div><p>When <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-flare-from-sunspot-caused-widespread-radio-blackouts-earth-2023-5">the sun belches</a> plasma and charged particles into space, they can speed toward Earth, travel down our planet's magnetic field lines toward the poles, and interact with molecules in our atmosphere to make the aurora. They can also bump satellites out of orbit and surge through technologies on the ground, triggering radio blackouts and meddling with GPS.</p><div type="image" title="solar flare red orange plasma erupting from the sun's surface" height="1500" width="1500" msid="107672116" hostid="261" sizebytes="153010"></div><p>There's always a steady flow of this "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-discovered-solar-wind-disappear-around-mars-2023-12">solar wind</a>," but eruptions on the sun can send a powerful flood of solar wind careening toward our planet. That's what scientists call space weather. These storms are happening more and more as the sun climbs toward peak activity.</p><div type="image" title="Solar Wind" height="360" width="640" msid="107188982" hostid="261"></div><p>People on Earth are safe from these blasts of solar activity, with the exception of rare cases where they might cause power or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/titanic-theory-suggests-aurora-borealis-solar-storm-affected-crash-2020-9">radio blackouts</a>. But as NASA and other space agencies send humans back to the moon and on to Mars, space weather will become a safety issue for them.</p><p>Studying solar eruptions and flares can help scientists forecast space weather better in the future. That could be crucial for long-distance spaceflights.</p><p>"If we want to win the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-up-the-ante-space-race-sky-ladder-to-mars-2021-6">race to Mars</a> then we have to have awareness of space weather all over the place," Nour Raouafi, a lead scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, said at the roundtable.</p><h2>NASA to almost land on the sun at the end of the year</h2><div type="image" title="nasa parker solar probe plus sun mission illustration" height="1687" width="3000" msid="107188983" hostid="261"></div><p>The "crown jewel" of the sun's big year comes on December 24, though, Raouafi said. That's when the Parker Solar Probe will fly closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever gone, about 3.8 million miles from its surface.</p><p>For comparison, Earth is 93 million miles from the sun.</p><p>On this close flyby, the probe will face unfathomably extreme heat and radiation, with temperatures as high as 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit.</p><p>Collecting data so close to the source of the solar wind will help scientists understand how it forms. It will also fuel the study of the corona.</p><p>"This is a monumental achievement for all of humanity. This is equivalent to the moon landing of '69. Now we are basically almost landing on a star," Raouafi said.</p>

Watch the sun show off all year with a total eclipse, strong solar storms, and NASA almost landing on the solar surface

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA successfully launched a probe headed for an asteroid that may be worth $10 quintillion.</li><li>The outer-world body is composed of metals such as gold, nickel, and iron.</li></ul><p>A NASA spacecraft is en route toward an asteroid believed to be brimming with an astronomical amount of metal riches.</p><p>The space agency successfully launched a probe Friday morning, carried by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. It is on a nearly six-year journey, with the "Psyche" spacecraft expected to reach the Main Asteroid Belt, located between Mars and Jupiter, in 2029.</p><p>Once there, it will orbit the asteroid for 26 months, studying and photographing the body to learn its history and mineral composition.</p><p>The 176-mile-wide asteroid, which is called 16 Psyche, has piqued interest on Earth. The celestial body is believed to be composed of high-value commodities such as platinum, gold, nickel, and iron. Altogether, estimates have valued 16 Psyche's ore at <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/asteroid-psyche-iron-nickel-gold-nasa-10-quintillion-metals-spacex-2023-7">around $10 quintillion</a>. </p><p>To be sure, NASA's aim in reaching the asteroid is for scientific observation, not commercial mining. Scientists have suggested the asteroid may be the exposed core of an ancient planet, or a primal mash-up of early minerals that came together at the start of the solar system, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67099605" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BBC reports</a>.</p><p>But excitement over 16 Psyche's mineral composition also puts focus on the blossoming commercial potential of space, with asteroid mining seen as a possible source of future revenue. </p><p>Under the 2015 US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, private firms have a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-mining-company-earth-startups-raw-materials-cobalt-gold-platinum-2021-3?utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets">legal right</a> to materials extracted from outer-world bodies, and startups have taken off as a result.</p><p>Even the Moon may be a target, as nations such as India, the US, China, and Russia, are all eyeing its potential resources, including water and rare-earth metals. Though valuations for the Moon's commodities range widely, some have <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/moon-mining-space-race-helium-metals-india-chandrayaan-russia-luna-2023-8">topped $1 quadrillion</a>.</p><p>Meanwhile, other high-value asteroids exist in the Main Asteroid Belt, which collectively could be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/asteroids-contain-metals-worth-quintillions-of-dollars-but-mining-them-wont-necessarily-make-your-richer-than-bezos-or-musk/articleshow/83989878.cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">valued at $700 quintillion</a>. </p><p>Of course, even if companies manage to mine celestial bodies successfully, a massive inflow of space-based supplies would send commodity prices on Earth plummeting.</p>

NASA probe heads for metal-rich asteroid worth $10 quintillion after launch on SpaceX rocket

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists have known about Mars holes for years but an old image has reignited interest. </li><li>These holes could contain evidence of alien life on Mars and be a shelter for future astronauts.</li></ul><p>In case you hadn't heard, there's a hole on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-havent-we-been-to-mars-yet-2024-5">Mars</a> — multiple holes, actually. These holes, or pits, aren't news. Here's a photo of one from 2007:</p><div type="image" title="dark black hole on grey martian surface" height="246" width="491" msid="110917150" hostid="261" sizebytes="24096"></div><p>However, an image taken by the HiRISE camera in 2022 recently resurfaced on the University of Arizona HiRISE's <a target="_blank" href="https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_075251_1775">Picture of the Day</a>, reigniting the conversation around these fascinating features.</p><p>Any excuse to talk about these holes is a good one because they remain largely mysterious and full of promise for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-plan-colonize-mars-plan-unrealistic-scientists-explain-2023-10">future scientific missions</a>.</p><h2 id="02922bb5-b134-4beb-a59c-caadf4cc0a2f">What are those mysterious holes on Mars?</h2><div type="image" title="side by side images of holes on mars" height="1500" width="3000" msid="110917144" hostid="261" sizebytes="202650"></div><p>The holes, aka pits, are located on the flanks of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/martian-volcano-unlike-anything-on-earth-2017-2">ancient volcanoes</a> in Mars's Tharsis region, the largest volcanic region on the red planet and home to some of the biggest volcanoes in our solar system.</p><p>As far as scientists can tell, Mars is no longer <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-close-up-photos-show-volcanoes-erupt-on-jupiters-moon-2024-2">volcanically active</a>. So there's no risk of these giant volcanoes erupting. But there is a possibility that residual underground lava tubes may still exist.</p><p>Scientists think these holes are "skylights," or places where the ground above the lava tubes has caved in and created a gaping hole in the surface, Brandon Johnson, a geophysicist at Purdue University who studies impact craters throughout the solar system, told Business Insider.</p><div type="image" title="Olympus Mons volcano on Mars from the Viking 1 Orbiter. The mosaic was created using images from orbit 735 taken 22 June 1978. Olympus Mons is about 600 km in diameter and the summit caldera is 24" height="947" width="1024" msid="110917143" hostid="261" sizebytes="101872"></div><p>If these lava tubes are anything like Earth's, they could be the perfect place for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-colony-volcano-hawaii-hi-seas-2016-1">astronauts to hunker down</a> during their stay on Mars.</p><p>"There's more than one of these [pits] on Mars that we've seen," Johnson said. "But they're really interesting because they're places where astronauts might be able to go and be safe from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-radiation-levels-spacex-nasa-exposure-2018-4">radiation</a>."</p><p>That said, it's unclear how deep these holes go or where they lead. We can only speculate from what we see on other planets, like our own.</p><div type="image" title="An underground lava tube is lit with a yellow lamp and a person stands inside." height="683" width="1024" msid="110917146" hostid="261" sizebytes="175578"></div><p>"On the Earth, these <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hawaii-man-fell-into-lava-tube-died-2019-11">lava tubes</a> can be large enough to walk around in, but they can also be small or the voids can be discrete or discontinuous," Ross Beyer, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute, told Business Insider over email. "So these pits we see could open into larger caves, or they could just be isolated pits."</p><p>Beyer added, "There's no way to know what's in them until we explore them in more detail."</p><p>Besides hypothetical <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-says-man-will-go-mars-within-10-years-2023-2">human missions</a> that may, or may not, happen anytime soon, there's a far more important reason to explore these holes further.</p><h2 id="e80dfe2f-3842-4d28-964d-919f40576cf4">Is there life on Mars?</h2><div type="image" title="A hole in the grey surface of the moon with craters all around it." height="800" width="800" msid="110917151" hostid="261" sizebytes="24272"></div><p>These holes could be one of the best places to search for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asks-help-retrieving-perseverance-mars-samples-alien-life-2024-4">evidence of extraterrestrial life</a> on Mars because they may offer a protective, warm sanctuary from the planet's unforgiving surface.</p><p>For example, lava tubes on the moon can be as warm as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasas-lro-finds-lunar-pits-harbor-comfortable-temperatures/">63 °F</a>. That's plenty warm enough for life to arise inside. It's unclear if lava tubes on Mars would also be this warm — it's not a stretch to imagine, just a challenge to confirm.</p><p>Right now, the only information scientists know about these holes is what they can see from orbiting cameras in space. When it launched onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft in 2005, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-orbiter-best-images-15th-anniversary-2020-8">HiRISE camera</a> was the most powerful telescope to ever leave Earth's orbit and has since transformed our understanding of the red planet, snapping over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103523003731">80,000</a> images. But it's still limited.</p><p>"Unfortunately, there is a limit to the 'angle' that we can get from orbit to look 'into' these pits. So sometimes we can see 'walls' and sometimes we can't," Beyer told BI.</p><div type="image" title="Illustration of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" height="555" width="740" msid="110917148" hostid="261" sizebytes="20564"></div><p>The best way to explore below the surface would be to physically go inside by dispatching a rover to investigate the pit, Johnson said.</p><p>"There are missions proposed to essentially have a robot go on a line and drop down into one of these skylights and be able to explore what's inside of them," he said.</p><p>But to be clear, just because there could be life in these pits, doesn't mean Mars definitely hosts extraterrestrials.</p><p>"This is a good place to look, but we don't know if there's life on Mars at all," Johnson said.</p><p>In the meantime, to understand these mysterious holes as much as we can, "HiRISE and other Mars-orbiting spacecraft will certainly continue to take images of volcanic areas from orbit to try and characterize them better," Beyer said.</p>

A mysterious hole on Mars could be a jackpot of scientific discoveries, from extraterrestrial life to where astronauts could live

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Humans have been studying <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-2024-total-solar-eclipse-cool-best-special-nasa-2024-1">total solar eclipses</a> for millennia to better understand the cosmos.</li><li>Total eclipses have helped prove Einstein's theory of relativity and led to the discovery of helium.</li></ul><p>On April 8, millions of people across the US will all do the same thing: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-to-see-total-eclipse-convince-boss-miss-work-2024-4">look up</a>.</p><p>In the middle of the afternoon, day will shift to night, as a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-eclipse-map-nasa-where-when-see-path-of-totality-2024-3">total solar eclipse</a> touches 15 states.</p><p>We know now what causes a total <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/devil-comet-visible-during-total-solar-eclipse-how-see-2024-4">solar eclipse</a>. But our ancient ancestors from millennia ago weren't so certain, and that was bad news for some scientists.</p><p>In the 21st century BCE, China's emporer <a target="_blank" href="https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipse-history">reportedly</a> had two astronomers beheaded for not <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/total-eclipse-solar-power-generation-states-outside-path-totality-2024-3">predicting a total eclipse</a>.</p><p>Over the centuries, total eclipses became less dire and more of an opportunity to test scientific theories and forge <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/helio-year-sun-solar-system-probe-eclipse-events-2024-1">new discoveries</a>.</p><p>Here are seven times a total solar eclipse has helped advance human science.</p><h2>1. Measuring Earth's rotation</h2><div type="image" title="Aerial view of planet Earth covered in clouds." height="1411" width="2124" msid="109088911" hostid="261" sizebytes="77030"></div><p>Some of the earliest suspected records of eclipses <a target="_blank" href="https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/history/">date back</a> thousands of years.</p><p>Some experts have suggested<strong> </strong>petroglyphs or rock carvings found on a monument in Ireland reference an eclipse that took place on November 30 in the year 3,340 BCE. Others have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/18/this-5000-year-old-stone-carving-may-be-the-worlds-first-drawing-of-an-eclipse/">expressed</a> skepticism.</p><p>Human-made markings on tortoise shells from China and a Babylonian tablet from over 3,000 years ago may also contain ancient references to eclipses.</p><p>Though these records are open to interpretation, scholars have <a target="_blank" href="https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/rotation.html">studied</a> historical descriptions of eclipses for centuries. It's how 18th-century astronomer Edmond Halley first realized the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-if-earth-stopped-spinning">Earth's rotation</a> has slowed over millennia.</p><h2>2. Discovering what causes eclipses</h2><div type="image" title="Engraving of  Pericles stands next to Anaxagoras, who is sitting on steps next to columns in Ancient Greece" height="1500" width="2263" msid="109088912" hostid="261" sizebytes="1159624"></div><p>Two modern scholars <a target="_blank" href="https://daily.jstor.org/anaxagoras-and-the-eclipse-the-first-to-get-it-right/">give</a> Greek philosopher Anaxagoras of Clazomenae credit for figuring out the moon's role in eclipses, calling him "perhaps the first empirical astronomer."</p><p>He likely developed his theories after witnessing an annular, or "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/october-solar-eclipse-annular-ring-of-fire-where-how-watch-2023-10">ring of fire</a>," eclipse on February 17, 478 BCE. While he got some of the science right, his overall understanding of the solar system was a product of its time.</p><p>Anaxagoras, for example, thought that air pressure kept the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-living-on-flat-earth-would-look-like-2017-11">flat Earth</a> aloft at the center of the rotating sun, moon, and stars. Despite that error, he worked out the basic mechanics behind eclipses.</p><p>Anaxagoras correctly believed the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-watch-da-vinci-glow-ghostly-shine-moon-phenomenon-2023-5">moon reflected</a> the sun's light. He was also accurate in his theories that when the moon moved in front of the sun, it caused a solar eclipse. Similarly, when the Earth was in between the sun and moon, there would be a lunar eclipse.</p><p>He also used the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lunar-eclipses-work-earth-moon-red-shadow-2018-7">moon's shadow</a><strong> </strong>during an eclipse<strong> </strong>to estimate its size, but his calculations gave him a much smaller answer than reality.</p><h2>3. Estimating the moon's distance from Earth</h2><div type="image" title="A person is seated looking through a telescope with astrological instruments nearby in Ancient Greece" height="1500" width="2172" msid="109088915" hostid="261" sizebytes="589214"></div><p>On March 14, 189 BCE, a total solar eclipse swept over what is now northern Turkey. Greek astronomer Hipparchus would have just been a child at the time, but it's possible he saw the event.</p><p>Years later, Hipparchus may have used secondhand accounts of that same eclipse to make one of the era's most mathematically accurate estimates of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10">moon's distance from Earth</a>.</p><p>Though Hipparchus' direct writings are lost, a 4th-century scholar <a target="_blank" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021828618817175">detailed</a> how he used the information.</p><p>The astronomer estimated the distance between where the total eclipse was in modern day Turkey and Alexandria, Egypt — where a fifth of the sun showed — to make his calculation.</p><p>Based on his math, Hipparchus offered a few ranges, including a mean distance<strong> </strong>of about 281,387 miles.</p><p>He wasn't terribly far off. The moon is about 238,855 miles away.</p><h2>4. Predicting the path of an eclipse</h2><div type="image" title="A map of England showing the path of an 18th century eclipse" height="2445" width="2000" msid="109088917" hostid="261" sizebytes="708824"></div><p>In the 11th or 12th century, Mayan astronomers made a remarkable prediction for their time: They calculated that a total solar eclipse would occur in 1991, and their prediction was accurate to within a day.</p><p>It would be centuries until humans made a more accurate prediction. In the 18th century,<strong><em> </em></strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/edmond-halley-solar-lunar-eclipse-manuscripts-sell-auction-2023-12">Edmond Halley</a>, better known for discovering a comet with his name, made a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2015/may/03/halleys-eclipse-newtonian-selling-science-history">map</a> predicting the path of the May 3, 1715 solar eclipse with extreme accuracy.</p><p>Others made maps before him, but Halley based his prediction on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/isaac-newton-burnt-notes-pyramids-apocalypse-theology-sold-auction-2020-12">Isaac Newton</a>'s theory of universal gravitation, which helped him pinpoint the eclipse's timing to within four minutes.</p><h2>5. The discovery of helium</h2><div type="image" title="A drawing of several people seated and standing around astronomical equipment in the late 19th century in India" height="1500" width="2175" msid="109088919" hostid="261" sizebytes="650872"></div><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-element-arctic-lava-suggest-earth-core-may-leaking-2023-10">Helium</a> is very abundant in the universe but rare on Earth. It took an eclipse for an astronomer to discover it.</p><p>French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen had <a target="_blank" href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-scientists-discovered-helium-first-alien-element-1868-180970057/">traveled</a> to Guntur, India just for the August 18, 1868 eclipse. He was using a spectroscope, a prism-like device for separating sunlight into a spectrum.</p><p>Janssen saw a yellow line with a wavelength unlike any other element. Around the same time, English astronomer Norman Lockyer developed an instrument for viewing the sun even without an eclipse. He saw the same line.</p><p>Lockyer called the mysterious element helium. It took a couple of decades for scientists to see it on Earth, during experiments on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/italy-skeleton-of-a-roman-killed-steps-from-sea-fled-vesuvius-eruption-2021-12">Mount Vesuvius</a> lava and uranium.</p><h2>6. Proof of Einstein's theory of relativity</h2><div type="image" title="A building holds a large piece of astronomical equipment with a long tube and rectangular box" height="1500" width="2244" msid="109088922" hostid="261" sizebytes="221628"></div><p>Astronomer James Craig Watson was certain he'd <a target="_blank" href="https://www.american-eclipse.com/">found</a> proof of a new planet during the 1878 eclipse. Supposedly located between the Sun and Mercury, Vulcan was only visible when the moon blocked the giant star.</p><p>Several more eclipses passed without anyone finding evidence of Vulcan. In 1915, Albert Einstein <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/einstein-showed-newton-was-wrong-about-gravity-now-scientists-are-ncna1038671">explained</a> Mercury's unusual orbit with his general <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/albert-einstein-thought-experiments-2023-10">theory of relativity</a>. It fit the data better than a mysterious, difficult-to-spot extra planet.</p><p>Despite this evidence, Einstein's theory didn't receive scientific proof until the May 29, 1919 eclipse. The physicist had said the sun's gravity would bend light from nearby stars.</p><p>In 1919, expeditions traveled to Principe, an island off the coast of Africa, and Brazil. While the moon blocked the sun, the astronomers took photographs.</p><p>The stars seemed to have shifted locations compared to the reference photos. The apparent new locations showed the sun was bending the light within the measurements that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russell-einstein-manifesto-nuclear-weapons-bombs-danger-2024-2">Einstein predicted</a>.</p><h2>7. Studying eclipses from space</h2><div type="image" title="A large antenna dish beneath a solar eclipse" height="1383" width="2055" msid="109088924" hostid="261" sizebytes="79024"></div><p>Gemini 12 astronauts Jim Lovell and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/buzz-aldrin-thoughts-lunar-module-moon-liftoff-2017-7">Buzz Aldrin</a> were the first humans to see a total eclipse from space. The November 12, 1966 eclipse moved from Peru to Brazil, and the astronauts hovered near the path of totality.</p><p>It was a coincidence that they were close enough to see it, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-history-of-total-solar-eclipses-seen-by-astronauts-from-outer-space-180983909/">Smithsonian Magazine</a>. Aldrin's photos were unfocused and a bit disappointing.</p><p>Four years later, TV networks <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8i9qNslaJA">broadcast</a> the "eclipse of the century," full of images of the event. NASA also launched over two dozen rockets to study <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-sunscreen-is-not-enough-to-protect-you-from-sun-2023-9">UV radiation</a> and solar X-rays during the phenomenon.</p><p>The agency still uses rockets to gather data during eclipses and will launch three on April 8.</p>

7 times a total solar eclipse revolutionized science 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A NASA probe caught a massive eruption from the sun on camera. </li><li>The Parker Solar Probe flew right through a major coronal mass ejection last year. </li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-parker-solar-probe-winds-flip-suns-magnetic-field-2019-12">NASA's Parker Solar Probe</a> flew right through a massive solar eruption and caught the whole thing on camera. It's the first up-close footage ever captured of a solar explosion like this. </p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF_e5eYgJ3Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The video</a>, released by scientists at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, features an especially powerful<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ejections-from-sun-may-threaten-future-moon-missions-2023-8"> coronal mass ejection</a> that took place last year.</p><p>CMEs are large explosions of super-hot plasma that erupt from the sun's atmosphere. They consist of charged particles that can<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sun-more-active-solar-storms-auroras-power-outages-grounded-flights-2023-2"> trigger radio blackouts and cause other mayhem</a> if they strike Earth.</p><p><a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe/2023/09/15/parker-observes-powerful-coronal-mass-ejection-vacuum-up-interplanetary-dust/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA said</a> that the CME that struck the Parker Solar Probe was "one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections ever recorded."</p><p>Lucky for those scientists currently studying the sun, NASA's Parker Solar Probe flew right through the CME and survived it, capturing the event on camera. (The eruption starts at around the 14-second mark.)</p>    <p><a href="https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-releases/230915b-nasa-parker-probe-close-encounter-with-coronal-mass-ejection-cme" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory</a>, CMEs can fire magnetic fields sometimes expelling billions of tons of plasma anywhere from 60-to-1,900 miles per second. </p><p>As for the one last September, Parker "clocked particles accelerating up to 840 miles per second," according to Johns Hopkins. The data may help physicists understand what propels CMEs and sends particles careening at such high speeds.</p><h2>The Parker Solar Probe's mission to touch the sun</h2><div type="image" title="parker solar probe" height="1448" width="2560" msid="103791151" hostid="261"></div><p>The Parker Solar Probe was designed specifically to study the sun. Not only is it the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-parker-solar-probe-fastest-human-object-2018-11">fastest spacecraft in history</a>, but it's also the one that can come closest to the sun, within 4 million miles of its surface, and survive the journey,<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-enters-the-solar-atmosphere-for-the-first-time-bringing-new-discoveries" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> according to NASA</a>.</p><p>"We knew from the beginning that Parker Solar Probe would fly through CMEs," Jim Kinnison, the Parker Solar mission systems engineer at APL, said in a Johns Hopkins statement. So NASA designed the probe to withstand the scorching temperatures near the sun. </p><p>The spacecraft is fitted with a custom heat shield as well as an autonomous system that protects the device from the sun's light emissions, per<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/traveling-to-the-sun-why-won-t-parker-solar-probe-melt" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> NASA</a>.</p><p>When Parker first detected the CME, it was about 5.7 million miles from the sun's surface. </p><p>Later, the probe traveled in the wake of the CME's shock wave. The Parker probe spent almost two days studying this one CME and came out unscathed, according to Johns Hopkins. </p><h2>The role of space dust in CMEs</h2><p>During the same CME, NASA researchers also looked at the way the storm affected <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cosmic-dust-parachutes-into-atmosphere-bubbles-2017-2">interplanetary dust</a> — particles floating around in space. They hope learning more about these interactions will help them better forecast space weather in the future. </p><p>"Does interplanetary dust affect the shape of a CME? Does it affect the speed of it? We're just starting to understand that it does," Russ Howard, a physicist at APL, said <a href="https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-releases/230914b-parker-sees-sun-sweep-up-interplanetary-dust" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in a statement</a>. </p><p>Parker has already given scientists a peek at other solar phenomena, including a glimpse at the source of "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-parker-solar-probe-winds-flip-suns-magnetic-field-2019-12">solar wind</a>." </p>

A NASA probe got slammed by a massive eruption from the sun &mdash; and caught it all on camera

Researchers have discovered a new "fiery, glowing red" <keyword id="20349430" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="exoplanet" source="keywords">exoplanet</keyword> displaying intense <keyword id="19916428" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="volcanic-activity" source="keywords">volcanic activity</keyword> similar to Jupiter's moon Io. Further, the many active volcanoes on the exoplanet could be making its surface hotter than some stars, they said. <br /><br />In a known star system about 66 light years away from Sun, the astrophysicists discovered signals for a new rocky planet about a third larger than Earth. The signals were captured by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which searches for exoplanets or planets outside our solar system, orbiting the brightest stars in the sky. <br /><br />The team, including researchers from the University of California Riverside, US, said that the star system, called <keyword id="21639491" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="HD-104067" source="keywords">HD 104067</keyword>, was already known to harbour a giant planet. While gathering data on the planet, Stephen Kane, a professor of Planetary Astrophysics, "unexpectedly" found another "fiery" one, taking the count of planets in the star system to three. <br /><br />"At optical wavelengths, you would be able to see a glowing, red-hot planet with a molten lava surface," Kane, lead author of the study published in The Astronomical Journal, said. <br /><br />The newly discovered rocky exoplanet, named <keyword id="21639492" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="TOI-6713-01" source="keywords">TOI-6713.01</keyword>, has a lot in common with Jupiter's rocky innermost moon, Io, and is known to be the most volcanically active body in our solar system, Kane said. <br /><br />The researchers explained that gravitational forces exerted by the other two planets in the system force this rocky planet into an elliptical or "eccentric" orbit around their star. <br /><br />The star, to which TOI-6713.01 is closer than the other planets, "squeezes" the rocky planet as it orbits and rotates because of gravity, thereby causing tides on the planet's surface in the form of volcanoes. <br /><br />Likening the scenario to "racquetball", Kane explained that the rocky inner planet gets hotter as it is constantly bounced around by the other two planets and squeezed by the star. <br /><br />"It's been forced into a situation where it's constantly exploding with volcanoes," he said. <br /><br />The extreme volcanic activity could be making the surface of TOI-6713.01 hotter than some stars, Kane said, as he calculated the surface temperature to be 2,600 degrees Kelvin or 2,330 degrees Celsius. <br /><br />The intense volcanic activity on <keyword id="21639489" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jupiters-Io" source="keywords">Jupiter's Io</keyword> is also due to the gravity exerted by the other moons of the solar system's biggest planet, which itself has a strong gravitational pull, the researchers said. <br /><br />Io is thus "forced" into an eccentric orbit around the planet, Kane explained. <br /><br />"If the other moons weren't there, Io would be in a circular orbit around the planet and it would be quiet on the surface. Instead, Jupiter's gravity squeezes Io so much that it erupts in volcanoes constantly," Kane said. <br /><br />On Earth, tides are the effect of moon's gravity on our oceans. <br /><br />The researchers said the findings reveal a lot about the extremes in amounts of energy that can be pumped into a rocky planet, such as TOI-6713.01. <br /><br />Further, tidal effects on planets haven't historically been a focus of exoplanet research, which Kane hopes might change with this discovery. <br /><br />"While we know that stars contribute to the heat of a planet, the vast majority of the energy here is tidal and that cannot be ignored," he said.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/aadhar-housing-finance-ipo-allotment-how-to-check-allotment-gmp-listing-date-and-more/articleshow/110071990.cms">Aadhar Housing Finance IPO allotment – How to check allotment, GMP, listing date and more</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/sports/webstories/ipl-decoded-highest-individual-scores-in-ipl-2024-so-far-from-stoinis-to-kohli/slidelist/110008351.cms">IPL Decoded: Highest individual scores in IPL 2024 so far, from Stoinis to Kohli</a><br /><br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/indian-smartphone-market-up-8-5g-smartphones-account-for-over-70-of-shipments/articleshow/110002512.cms"><strong>Indian smartphone market up 8%, 5G smartphones account for over 70% of shipments</strong></a><br />

New "fiery" exoplanet discovered, found to display volcanic activity like Jupiter's Io

5 previously unknown secrets of the Sun shed new light on our star

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reconnected with the Voyager 2 space probe after losing it.</li><li>The space agency lost contact on July 21 after accidentally sending a wrong command.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mission-update-voyager-2-communications-pause" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA</a> announced on Friday that it had reestablished communication with the Voyager 2 space probe after a long-shot strategy paid off.</p><p>The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent an interstellar "shout" more than 12.3 billion miles which got the probe's attention after an error by NASA officials rendered the probe temporarily unreachable.</p><p>NASA lost contact with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-voyager-pictures-45-year-journey-neptune-uranus-saturn-earth-2022-6">Voyager 2</a> on July 21 after it erroneously sent a series of commands that caused its antenna to point two degrees away from Earth.</p><p>That left it "unable to receive commands or transmit data back to Earth," severing it from the ground antennae of NASA's Deep Space Network, a global system that NASA uses to communicate with space probes.</p><p>Hope re-emerged on Tuesday, when <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-loses-contact-voyager-2-sent-wrong-command-mistake-space-2023-8">NASA said</a> it had detected a faint signal from Voyager.</p><p>The agency then used a facility in Canberra, Australia, to blast a "shout" across the cosmos to get Voyager to point its antennae back to Earth and resume ordinary communication.</p><p>According to the agency, it took the signal 18.5 hours for commands to reach Voyager 2 through the vastness of space. The outward and return journeys together took 37 hours, leaving the scientists in limbo waiting to hear whether the ploy worked.</p><p>Suzanne Dodd, the project manager for Voyager 2, said that that time "was pretty nervewracking. You don't sleep well," per <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/science/nasa-voyager-2-contact.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>The operation only had a small chance of success, a spokeswoman for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory told The Times. But it nevertheless appeared to be a success, as NASA said that the probe finally began sending back data on August 4 at 12:29 a.m., and that all seemed to return to normal.</p><p>"After two weeks of not hearing anything, we're back to getting unique data from the interstellar medium," said Linda Spilker, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the lead mission scientist for Voyager 2.</p><p>The probe does not appear to have been affected by the incident, with Dodd saying that an assessment showed that it looked "very healthy, very normal," per The Times.</p><p>The Voyager 2 probe is part of NASA's longest-running mission, and it has traveled through space for almost half a century, capturing some of the most <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-voyager-pictures-45-year-journey-neptune-uranus-saturn-earth-2022-6" rel="">iconic pictures</a> of the solar system.</p>

NASA used an interstellar 'shout' to reconnect with Voyager 2 probe after losing it in a technical screw-up

<ul class="summary-list"><li>China launched the Chang'e-6 probe to collect samples from the far side of the moon.</li><li>The probe lifted off from China's Wenchang Space Launch Center at 5.37 a.m. ET. </li></ul><p>China on Friday launched a probe to collect samples from the far side of the moon, as it stepped up its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-china-race-to-the-moon-photos-launches-2022-11">space race against the US.</a></p><p>The Chang'e-6 probe successfully lifted off from China's Wenchang Space Launch Center at 5.37 a.m. ET. </p><p>The mission is expected to last 53 days. It will collect around two kilograms of lunar samples from the far side of the moon for analysis. </p><p>China is hoping Chang'e-6 can retrieve samples from the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the lunar far side. According to NASA, this is one of the largest and oldest impact features in the solar system. </p><p><span>If successful, it would be a major demonstration of the nation's spacefaring prowess, as no other country has brought samples back from the far side of the moon.</span></p><p><span>The terrain on the far side of the moon is quite different from its near side. "It lacks the large dark spots, called maria, that make up the familiar Man in the Moon on the near side. Instead, craters of all sizes crowd together over the entire far side," according to </span><a target="_blank" href="https://science.nasa.gov/resource/the-moon-from-the-other-side/"><span>NASA</span></a><span>. </span></p><p><span>"People want to know why this happened," Yi Xu, a professor at the Space Science Institute of Macau University of Science and Technology and a member of the Chang'e-6 science team told </span><a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/science/china-moon-launch-watch.html"><span>The New York Times. </span></a><span>"If we can collect some samples on the far side, then we can maybe get some clues to these questions."</span></p><p>As <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-beat-us-race-moon-lunar-lander-peregrine-fuel-leak-2024-1">Business Insider previously reported</a>, the US and China  have aggressive programs to return to the moon. The lunar surface is a strategic target for many nations vying to expand their people's reach beyond Earth.</p><p><span>China aims to bring humans to the moon by the end of 2030. NASA recently announced it was delaying its own mission to bring humans back to the moon. However, it still aims to get there before China with a predicted launch date in 2026.</span></p>

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