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Mercury News

April 5, 2026

Top Headlines

 

A new concept suggests SpaceX’s Starship could revolutionize a future mission to Uranus, one of the solar system’s most overlooked planets. By refueling in orbit and helping slow the spacecraft on arrival, it could cut travel time nearly in ...
NASA’s Perseverance rover has just made history by driving across Mars using routes planned by artificial intelligence instead of human operators. A vision-capable AI analyzed the same images and terrain data normally used by rover planners, ...
ESA has inaugurated a powerful new 35-meter deep space antenna at its New Norcia site in Western Australia, marking a major boost to Europe’s ability to communicate with spacecraft exploring the ...
Thirteen years after landing on Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover is running smarter and more efficiently than ever. With new autonomy and multitasking capabilities, it’s maximizing the output from its long-lasting nuclear power source while ...
The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft has successfully completed its initial commissioning following the October 14, 2024, launch. Scheduled to arrive in the Jovian system in 2030, the spacecraft will orbit ...
NASA's Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The largest spacecraft NASA ever built for a mission headed to ...
Deposits of ice in lunar dust and rock (regolith) are more extensive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of data from NASA's LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission. Ice would be a valuable resource for future lunar expeditions. ...
An international team of planetary scientists has detected patches of water frost sitting atop the Tharsis volcanoes on Mars, which are not only the tallest volcanic mountains on the Red Planet but ...
A new study may help redefine how scientists map the surface of the Moon, making the process more streamlined and precise than ever ...
Scientists have come a step closer to identifying the mysterious origins of the 'slow' solar wind, using data collected during the Solar Orbiter spacecraft's first close journey to the ...
A deeply eroded giant volcano, active from ancient through recent times and with possible remnants of glacier ice near its base, had been hiding near Mars' equator in plain sight. Its discovery points to an exciting new place to search for life, and ...
Observations during two flybys by the Mio spacecraft as part of the BepiColombo International Mercury Exploration Project have revealed that chorus waves occur quite locally in the dawn sector of ...

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updated 8:56am EDT

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