News – Page 18 – Astronomy Now

20 August 2026

Engineers ‘sandblast’ InSight lander to clear dust from solar arrays

7 June 2021 Astronomy Now

Engineers come up with a novel way to clear light-obscuring dust from the InSight Mars lander’s solar panels: sandblasting.

After a 30-year hiatus, NASA is returning to Venus with two new probes

4 June 2021 Astronomy Now

NASA is funding two new missions to Venus, one an orbiting radar mapper and another that will drop a small probe into the cloud-shrouded planet’s churning atmosphere.

Mars helicopter ‘muscles through’ navigation glitch on sixth flight

31 May 2021 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter safely landed after wobbling, suffering power spikes, and enduring velocity fluctuations on its sixth flight at Mars.

China’s Zhurong Mars rover sends back first pictures

19 May 2021 Astronomy Now

The first images from China’s Zhurong Mars rover show the spacecraft is in good shape after landing on the red planet.

Voyager 1 sheds new light on interstellar medium

11 May 2021 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Voyager 1 probe, now 43 years outbound from Earth, is still at work, shedding new light on the interstellar medium.

Helium ‘rain’ in Saturn’s interior may influence magnetic field

7 May 2021 Astronomy Now

Data collected by the Cassini spacecraft during its final few orbits of Saturn is shedding new light on the planet’s deep interior.

Proposed Interstellar Probe gains momentum with Johns Hopkins study

28 April 2021 Astronomy Now

Engineers are testing prototype heat shields for a proposed interstellar probe that first would fly close by the Sun for a gravitational slingshot into deep space.

New ‘test-bed’ telescope joins hunt for threatening asteroids

27 April 2021 Astronomy Now

A European Space Agency “test-bed” telescope has been installed at ESO’s La Silla Observatory to hunt for threatening asteroids and test advanced technology.

Monster flare from Proxima Centauri dwarfs any ever seen from the Sun

21 April 2021 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have spotted the most powerful flare ever seen erupting from Proxima Centauri, an outburst 100 times more powerful than any from the Sun.

Ingenuity Mars ‘copter makes historic first flight on red planet

19 April 2021 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter completes a successful test flight, becoming the first aircraft to fly in the atmosphere of another world. Four more flights are planned.