La Nasa a encore accompli une prouesse en sauvant des composants de la sonde interstellaire Voyager 1. Des propulseurs qui ne fonctionnaient plus depuis plus de 20 ans ont pu être remis en service.

Le 14 mai 2025, des scientifiques ont publié une étude révélant que le rover Perseverance a détecté des aurores boréales sur Mars. C'est la première fois que ce phénomène se produit en lumière visible et qu'il est observé depuis la surface de la planète rouge.

La plus grande éruption solaire de l'année (jusqu'à présent) a été émise le 14 mai 2025. La Nasa et le NOAA ont pu immortaliser cette puissante éruption du Soleil, classée dans la catégorie X, c'est-à-dire la plus grande.

La montée des eaux, en 2024, est plus importante que la prédiction faite par la Nasa. La raison n'est pas seulement la fonte des glaces. Le changement climatique revêt bien des formes.

La Maison-Blanche voudrait économiser sur la Station spatiale internationale (ISS), en retirant plus de 500 millions d'euros de la NASA, dans le budget 2026 consacré à cette mission. Cela pourrait avoir une incidence sur la taille des équipages, leur rotation ainsi que la durée des séjours et les activités à bord.

Dans sa proposition de budget pour les États-Unis, la Maison-Blanche de Donald Trump a fait de nombreuses propositions pour la Nasa. Les recherches environnementales et météorologiques prennent un coup, mais le programme Artémis est aussi ciblé : la station lunaire internationale Gateway pourrait être tout simplement annulée.

NASA's SPHEREx space observatory has officially begun its two-year mission to map the entire sky in 102 infrared wavelengths, capturing about 3,600 images daily to create 3D maps of hundreds of millions of galaxies. Its goal is to unlock new insights into cosmic inflation, the origins of galaxies, and the building blocks of life in the Milky Way by using spectroscopy to analyze light and matter across the universe. From a press release: From its perch in Earth orbit, SPHEREx peers into the darkness, pointing away from the planet and the Sun. The observatory will complete more than 11,000 orbits over its 25 months of planned survey operations, circling Earth about 14.5 times a day. It orbits Earth from north to south, passing over the poles, and each day it takes images along one circular strip of the sky. As the days pass and the planet moves around the Sun, SPHEREx's field of view shifts as well so that after six months, the observatory will have looked out into space in every direction. When SPHEREx takes a picture of the sky, the light is sent to six detectors that each produces a unique image capturing different wavelengths of light. These groups of six images are called an exposure, and SPHEREx takes about 600 exposures per day. When it's done with one exposure, the whole observatory shifts position -- the mirrors and detectors don't move as they do on some other telescopes. Rather than using thrusters, SPHEREx relies on a system of reaction wheels, which spin inside the spacecraft to control its orientation. Hundreds of thousands of SPHEREx's images will be digitally woven together to create four all-sky maps in two years. By mapping the entire sky, the mission will provide new insights about what happened in the first fraction of a second after the big bang. In that brief instant, an event called cosmic inflation caused the universe to expand a trillion-trillionfold.

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Une nouvelle image particulièrement détaillée du Soleil a été partagée par l'ESA. On la doit à la mission Solar Orbiter, partie observer de plus près l'étoile depuis 5 ans.

Le rover Curiosity de la Nasa apparaît dans une nouvelle image prise depuis l'orbite de Mars. C'est la première fois qu'un orbiteur martien de l'agence spatiale parvient à capturer le robot en train de rouler sur la planète rouge.

To celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 35th anniversary in orbit, NASA and ESA released a series of new, out-out-of-this-world images spanning planets, nebulae, and galaxies. From a press release: Hubble today is at the peak of its scientific return thanks to the dedication, perseverance and skills of engineers, scientists and mission operators. Astronaut shuttle crews gallantly chased and rendezvoused with Hubble on five servicing missions from 1993 to 2009. The astronauts, including ESA astronauts on two of the servicing missions, upgraded Hubble's cameras, computers and other support systems. By extending Hubble's operational life the telescope has made nearly 1.7 million observations, looking at approximately 55,000 astronomical targets. Hubble discoveries have resulted in over 22,000 papers and over 1.3 million citations as of February 2025. All the data collected by Hubble is archived and currently adds up to over 400 terabytes. The demand for observing time remains very high with 6:1 oversubscriptions, making it one of the most in-demand observatories today. Hubble's long operational life has allowed astronomers to see astronomical changes spanning over three decades: seasonal variability on the planets in our solar system, black hole jets traveling at nearly the speed of light, stellar convulsions, asteroid collisions, expanding supernova bubbles, and much more.

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NASA's oldest active astronaut, Don Pettit, celebrated his 70th birthday by returning to Earth after a seven-month mission aboard the ISS. The Guardian reports: A Soyuz capsule carrying the American and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, Pettit's birthday. "Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan," Russia's space agency Roscosmos said. Spending 220 days in space, Pettit, Ovchinin and Vagner orbited the Earth 3,520 times and completed a journey of 93.3m miles over the course of their mission. It was the fourth spaceflight for Pettit, who has logged more than 18 months in orbit during his 29-year career. Nasa said in a statement that Pettit was "doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth." A recording of the touchdown can be viewed here. Earlier this year, Pettit managed to take one of the best photos ever captured from space. "When I first saw it, I was dazzled by its beauty," wrote Ars Technica's Eric Berger. "But when I looked further into the image, there were just so many amazing details to be found." "In this image, one can see the core of the Milky Way galaxy, zodiacal light (sunlight diffused by interplanetary dust), streaks of SpaceX Starlink satellites, individual stars, an edge-on view of the atmosphere that appears in burnt umber due to hydroxide emissions, a near-sunrise just over the horizon, and nighttime cities appearing as streaks."

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Auditionné pour le poste d'administrateur de l'agence spatiale américaine (Nasa), Jared Isaacman a balayé plusieurs sujets devant le Sénat. Il a notamment souligné l'importance qu'il accorderait à la propulsion nucléaire pour l'exploration spatiale.

Le prochain patron de la Nasa a rappelé que la priorité immédiate de l'agence spatiale n'est pas les voyages habités vers Mars. Malgré les déclarations d'Elon Musk ou de Donald Trump, la priorité est ailleurs.

Un groupe d'ingénieurs et d'historiens propose un projet surprenant : récupérer Vanguard 1 et le ramener sur Terre. Il s'agit du plus vieux satellite encore en orbite terrestre. Il avait été lancé dans l'espace en 1958.

Ce 31 mars, SpaceX a lancé la mission Fram2, marquant le premier vol habité en orbite polaire composé entièrement de civils. Différentes missions scientifiques seront menées pour les quelques jours passés dans l'espace.

Rentrés en mars 2025, les astronautes de la NASA Sunita Williams et Barry Wilmore ont donné une conférence de presse le 31 mars 2025. Ils ont affirmé qu'ils retourneraient sans hésitation dans le vaisseau spatial Starliner, construit par Boeing, pour rejoindre une nouvelle fois la Station spatiale internationale (ISS).

C'est la découverte de ce mois de mars… sur Mars : Une roche, pleine de sphérules, unique et encore inconnue, a été découverte par le rover Perseverance. Qu'est-ce que cela implique ?

Despite recent test failures, NASA has added SpaceX's Starship to its Launch Services Program contract, allowing it to compete for future science missions once it achieves a successful orbital flight. Florida Today reports: NASA announced the addition Friday to its current launch provider contract with SpaceX, which covers the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. This opens the possibility of Starship flying future NASA science missions -- that is once Starship reaches a successful orbital flight. "NASA has awarded SpaceX of Starbase, Texas, a modification under the NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract to add Starship to their existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch service offerings," NASA's statement reads. Th announcement is simply an onboarding of Starship as an option, as the contract runs through 2032. However, SpaceX is under pressure to get Starship operational by next year as the company plans not only to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars by late 2026, but the NASA Artemis III moon landing is fast approaching. Should it remain the plan with the current administration, Starship will act as a human lander for NASA's Artemis III crew. "The NLS II contracts are multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, with an ordering period through June 2030 and an overall period of performance through December 2032. The contracts include an on-ramp provision that provides an opportunity annually for new launch service providers to add their launch service on an NLS II contract and compete for future missions and allows existing contractors to introduce launch services not currently on their NLS II contracts," NASA's statement reads.

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La Nasa a envoyé des fusées dans le ciel de l'Alaska, lors d'un pic d'aurores boréales, pour mener une expérience sur leur impact sur notre atmosphère.

La nouvelle suscite l'agitation depuis le 24 mars 2025 : des scientifiques du CNRS ont découvert les plus longues molécules organiques jamais identifiées sur Mars. Pourraient-elles être le reflet d'une forme de vie sur la planète rouge ? Explications.