Space probes as a research area encompasses the design, deployment, and scientific utilization of uncrewed spacecraft sent beyond Earth orbit to investigate planetary bodies, small Solar System objects, and the heliosphere, and increasingly to perform astrophysical observations from deep space. Research focuses on mission architecture, autonomous navigation and operations, radiation-hardened avionics, long-duration power systems (e.g., RTGs, advanced solar arrays), high-gain communications, and in situ and remote-sensing payloads optimized for extreme environments. The field integrates planetary science, space plasma physics, and instrumentation, emphasizing data acquisition strategies, sample return capabilities, and technology maturation for future interplanetary and interstellar exploration.
Do aliens exist? Could Earth really be the only planet hosting intelligent life?
Astrobiology
Apr 16, 2026
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We have been searching for signals from other civilizations for over sixty years. Radio telescopes on Earth have swept the sky, listened patiently, and found nothing but silence. It is a search that demands extraordinary ...
Astronomy
Apr 14, 2026
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24
Observations conducted with the Subaru Telescope and its first-generation wide-field camera, Suprime-Cam, have revealed new insights into the relationship between the color and size of Jupiter Trojan asteroids.
Astronomy
Apr 10, 2026
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55
The planet Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, and also the most difficult for spacecraft to visit and explore. This is because as spacecraft get closer to Mercury, the sun's enormous gravity pulls in the spacecraft, ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 1, 2026
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Dragonfly integration and testing—the activities involved in assembling the mission's rotorcraft lander and testing it for the rigors of launch and extreme conditions of space—is officially underway in clean rooms and control ...
Space Exploration
Mar 13, 2026
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35
An old NASA science satellite plunged uncontrolled from orbit and reentered over the Pacific on Wednesday.
Space Exploration
Mar 12, 2026
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30
Asteroids are some of the oldest objects in the solar system: leftovers from the chaotic time when planets were assembling from dust and rock. They're time capsules, preserving clues about what the early solar system was ...
Astrobiology
Mar 9, 2026
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Estimating a mass for a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) is perhaps the single most important thing to understand about it, after its trajectory. Actually doing so isn't easy though, as the mass for objects in the tens ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 2, 2026
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Southwest Research Institute was part of an international team that demonstrated how complex organic molecules (COMs), key chemical precursors to life, could have been incorporated into Jupiter's Galilean moons during their ...
Astrobiology
Feb 23, 2026
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147
The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it would extend its Mars probe mission, now in its fifth year, for an additional three, underlining the oil-rich state's space ambitions.
Space Exploration
Feb 17, 2026
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