Space & Physics: NASA announces future moon base and nuclear rocket

Top stories in space and physics news                    

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March 26—This week's top stories include major announcements from NASA about a giant leap into nuclear rocketry, moon bases and commercial space stations—plus, the science of blockbuster sci-fi romp Project Hail Mary, an antimatter road trip, the universe's chonkiest stars, and much, much more. Enjoy! Thoughts? Questions? Let me know via e-mail (lbillings@sciam.com), X or Bluesky. —Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Physical Sciences

Top Stories

NASA unveils ambitious new moon base plans NASA chief Jared Isaacman announced a $30-billion plan to speed up its lunar landings and establish a U.S. moon base by 2036 Dan Vergano

Physicists just took a road trip with a load of antimatter. Here's how it went Scientists at CERN built a container weighing about a ton to transport just 92 subatomic antimatter particles without annihilating them Emma Gometz

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How accurate is the science in Project Hail Mary? This science-fiction movie plays with quantum physics, space travel, astrobiology and mass-to-energy conversion Emma Gometz

Why mathematicians are boycotting their biggest conference More than 1,500 mathematicians are demanding that their field's most prestigious meeting be moved from the U.S. Joseph Howlett

Inside NASA's audacious plan to save a doomed space telescope NASA's Swift space telescope is doomed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere later this year. A daring mission to boost it to safety could have big implications for science Meghan Bartels

Astronomers witness the birth of a new solar system The decades since scientists confirmed the first planet around another star have been rich in discovery, but it's rare to see a new solar system as it forms Joseph Howlett

NASA releases stunning new Saturn images—and the gas giant has never looked so good New images captured by the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes show Saturn in both visible and infrared light Jackie Flynn Mogensen

'Science under attack': Top climate scientist Kate Marvel explains why she resigned from NASA Climate scientist Kate Marvel talked to Scientific American about her decision to leave NASA amid federal government turmoil and funding challenges Andrea Thompson

NASA announces nuclear-powered Mars mission by 2028 The U.S. space agency will aim to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars—a first—in a bid to show that nuclear propulsion can be used to send missions into deep space Claire Cameron

Earth's magnetic field may be more powerful than we thought A major defense against everything space throws at us, Earth's magnetic field may even protect the moon from damaging galactic cosmic rays K. R. Callaway

NASA pushes space industry to use the ISS as a test ground for future stations Faced with the imminent retirement of the International Space Station, NASA is pushing to speed up work on its potential replacements Meghan Bartels

Human sperm get lost in space, pioneering study finds Researchers put human sperm inside a uterus-like simulation under zero gravity conditions. It did not go well Jackie Flynn Mogensen

What We're Reading

How working out like an astronaut can reduce back pain and slow ageing | New Scientist A Meteor Exploded Over Ohio. Then the Chase Began. | The New York Times A mission NASA might kill is still returning fascinating science from Jupiter | Ars Technica

From the Archive

NASA's 'Nuclear Option' May Be Crucial for Getting Humans to Mars After decades of false starts, a new push for nuclear-powered rocketry could make or break the space agency's plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet David W. Brown

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