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It’s been an eventful year for robotic missions. From probes of Solar System bodies to large-scale cosmic structures, advances in our understanding of the formation and evolution of the Universe gather speed.
Astronomy has always been a direct way to bring science to the public. From planetariums to books and initiatives to bring the night sky to all corners of the world, our only limit is creativity (and funding).
The two Moon landing attempts of the Luna 25 and the Chandrayaan-3 missions in close succession are symbolic of the renewed international push to go back to the Moon on a more consistent basis, which is shaping up to be one of the main space exploration narratives of our time.
A new regular column, Access Code, makes its debut in this issue. Access Code will focus on computational astrophysics, and in particular the models and programs that have supported astrophysical discoveries over the past few decades.
With the retirement of Ariane 5, Europe lost its only heavy-lift rocket — one that carried most of ESA’s fleet of large astronomy missions. The long-term future of independent access to space for Europe is not straightforward and can complicate the European space exploration roadmap.
Early JWST results on high-redshift galaxies have attracted a lot of press and much debate, but other areas of astronomy and astrophysics are also uncovering new understanding about the Universe with JWST, albeit with less of a fanfare.
Reports of four galaxies from when the Universe was 2% of its current age are as exciting as they are puzzling — leading scientists to question our galaxy formation and evolution models.
Missions from various space agencies are going to be busy delivering material from different bodies throughout the upcoming decade, looking forward to the return of samples from Mars.
Light pollution affects every region on Earth, including at the poles and even above us in low-Earth orbit. That isn’t news. But the extent of the problem, laid out in our Focus on dark skies, is startling and should turn us all into activists.
The launch of ChatGPT late last year has school teachers, conference organizers, Google and others worried, for different reasons. Where should we draw the line when it comes to artificial intelligence?
