NASA's Artemis I Moon Mission Is 'Go' for Launch

Trouble viewing? View in your browser. View all Scientific American publications.

    

August 25, 2022

Dear Reader, This week, we're going to the moon*. Or next week, rather, with a launch attempt on Monday, August 29 for the Artemis I mission, the opening shot in NASA's long-sought lunar return. Our top stories preview Monday's launch and provide detailed context and perspective for the entire Artemis program—but stay tuned for ongoing coverage next week and beyond as Artemis I unfolds. Elsewhere, we have stories on planet-devouring stars, Earth's shortest day, the paradoxical innards of black holes, and more. Enjoy! *Technically, we (meaning NASA astronauts) won't go until 2025 or so, with the launch of Artemis III. But you know what I meant.

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Space Exploration NASA's Artemis I Moon Mission Is 'Go' for Launch The U.S. is preparing to send astronauts to the moon for the first time in 50 years By Nadia Drake

Space Exploration The 'Program Is Precarious': Lori Garver on NASA's Artemis I Moonshot A former NASA deputy administrator speaks candidly about the troubled history and radical potential of the space agency's lunar return By Nadia Drake

Space Exploration NASA's Moon-Bound Megarocket Will Send a Spacecraft to an Asteroid, Too The launch of NASA's Artemis I mission will also be the start of the first deep-space rendezvous to be conducted by a solar-sail-propelled spacecraft By Steven Ashley

Space Exploration NASA Unveils Candidate Landing Sites for Artemis Astronauts When humans return to the moon, they'll likely visit one of these 13 regions near the moon's south pole By Meghan Bartels,SPACE.com

Planetary Science Here's Why Earth Just Had Its Shortest Day on Record How wind, ice and rock may have combined to give our planet its shortest day By Sasha Warren

Astrophysics Astronomers Reveal New Details of How Stars Devour Planets Surprisingly, some worlds can survive being engulfed by a sunlike star when it swells to become a red giant By Nola Taylor Tillman

Black Holes Hawking, a Paradox and a Black Hole Mystery, Solved? We do not have a theory to tell us everything about how a black hole works, but new research is shedding a least some light on one of their many mysteries. By Clara Moskowitz,Tulika Bose,Jeffery DelViscio | 07:46

Black Holes How the Inside of a Black Hole Is Secretly on the Outside Mysterious "islands" help to explain what happens to information that falls into a black hole By Ahmed Almheiri

Astrophysics Understanding the Inner Workings of Stars [Sponsored] Conny Aerts is an astrophysicist and a pioneer of asteroseismology. This year she shared the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics for her research and leadership that has laid the foundations of solar and stellar structure theory, and revolutionized our understanding of the interiors of stars. By Scientific American Custom Media | 09:47

FROM THE STORE Extraterrestrials and the Search for Life Do aliens exist? The enduring mystery of whether we're alone in the universe is a question that continues to drive scientific study into groundbreaking directions. This collection examines the latest thinking in the search for life, from discussing why we haven't found evidence of aliens so far to determining where and how to conduct the search to opening up the possibilities for what otherworldly life could truly look like.

QUOTE OF THE DAY "For the past 30-plus years of my career, when we were talking about going back to the moon, we were always going back to stay. Because we were going to reduce the cost. And it was going to be sustainable. And we were going to have worthy things to do there. I don't feel like those pieces are in place yet." Lori Garver, former NASA deputy administrator

FROM THE ARCHIVE SpaceX's Starship and NASA's SLS Could Supercharge Space Science Scientists are beginning to dream of how a new generation of super-heavy-lift rockets might enable revolutionary space telescopes and bigger, bolder interplanetary missions By Jonathan O'Callaghan | April 2022

LATEST ISSUES

Questions?   Comments?

Download the Scientific American App

To view this email as a web page, go here. You received this email because you opted-in to receive email from Scientific American. To ensure delivery please add news@email.scientificamerican.com to your address book. Unsubscribe     Manage Email Preferences     Privacy Policy     Contact Us