Leah Crane

6 days ago | newscientist.com | Leah Crane

Space Kosmos 482, a Soviet spacecraft that never made it beyond Earth’s orbit on its way to Venus, is due to come crashing down on 9 or 10 May More than 50 years after its launch, a Soviet spacecraft called Kosmos 482 is about to come crashing back to Earth. It was originally intended to land on the surface of Venus, but it started to fall apart in low Earth orbit and never made it beyond there.

6 days ago | newscientist.com | Leah Crane

Space Kosmos 482, a Soviet spacecraft that never made it beyond Earth’s orbit on its way to Venus, is due to come crashing down on 9 or 10 May More than 50 years after its launch, a Soviet spacecraft called Kosmos 482 is about to come crashing back to Earth. It was originally intended to land on the surface of Venus, but it started to fall apart in low Earth orbit and never made it beyond there.

2 months ago | newscientist.com | Leah Crane

Space Intuitive Machines' Athena spacecraft has landed on the surface of the moon, but it seems to have fallen over and we do not yet know if it will be able to drill for ice Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander has made it to the moon, but it seems to have fallen over. The lander is still working, but it is not yet clear which parts of its mission it will still be able to accomplish.

2 months ago | newscientist.com | Leah Crane

Right now, a lot of planets are visible in the night sky. A great alignment, which occurs when all the solar system’s planets are visible at once, has just ended, but you can still spot most of them except for Mercury and Venus, which have already dipped below the horizon. So naturally, for the past month, my phone has been dinging with friends’ pictures of the sky, accompanied by, “Hey, what planet is this?” or, “This is Mars, right?” As the designated Space Friend, I am expected to…

2 months ago | newscientist.com | Leah Crane

All of our solar system’s planets are lining in the night sky at once this week. This extraordinary celestial event will see the sky scattered with seven visible planets in what is known as a great planetary alignment, or a “planetary parade”. The eight planets in our solar system orbit the sun in roughly the same plane, because they all originally formed from the same disc of debris around the sun.