Ancient Martian lake and river delta clear in Perseverance photos

Jezero crater on Mars was chosen as the landing site for the Perseverance rover because satellite images suggested it was once an ancient lake. More direct evidence has now been found, as photos snapped by the rover reveal signs of flash flooding.

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“Flawless” flyby for BepiColombo turns up its first photos of Mercury

Nearly three years after lifting off from French Guiana, the BepiColombo space probe has now set its sights on Mercury for the first time, completing a "flawless" flyby over the weekend and collecting its first images.

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First all-private crewed orbital mission returns to Earth

Innovation4, the first all-private crewed mission into space, has returned to Earth. The Crew Dragon capsule chartered by billionaire Jared Isaacman splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida after three days in orbit.

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SpaceX’s first all-private crewed space mission lifts off

The Inspiration4 mission has lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission differs from any previous crewed mission in that it is the first conducted entirely as a private venture.

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Bizarre repeating radio signal near galactic center may be brand new object

Astronomers have detected a strange radio source from near the center of the Milky Way. The signal repeats seemingly at random and can’t be attributed to any known astronomical object, leading the team to consider that it may be something brand new.

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Reusable spaceplane demonstrator completes 5 test flights in 3 days

Dawn Aerospace has announced that it has successfully completed five test flights of its uncrewed Mk-II Aurora suborbital spaceplane in the skies over Glentanner Aerodrome on New Zealand’s South Island using surrogate jet engines instead of a rocket.

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James Webb Space Telescope completes its final testing phase

It looks like the James Webb Space Telescope might actually launch in October, for real this time. The perennially delayed instrument has completed its final tests and is now being prepped for shipment to the launch facility.

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Curiosity might not have landed in a lake after all, says new model

NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale crater for nine years, studying sediments that look an awful lot like those left behind from an ancient lake. But new research from the University of Hong Kong proposes a much drier explanation.

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CubeSat becomes first craft to fly with ESA’s standardized “space brain”

On June 26, ESA's OPS-SAT space lab went into Earth orbit with a computer running the European Ground System – Common Core (EGS-CC) "space brain" software that will be common to all European space missions from 2025.

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The Apollo 11 Ascent Stage may still be orbiting the Moon

A new mathematical study suggests that the abandoned Ascent Stage of the Apollo 11 mission's Eagle Lunar Module, long believed to have crashed on the Moon in 1969, may be circling our largest natural satellite in a stable orbit.

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