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Astrophysics

Observations from HST and the Kepler space telescope have provided evidence for the first moon discovered orbiting a planet outside of our solar system. The discovery was announced on 03 October 2018. The moon may be the size of Neptune, orbiting a planet several times the mass of Jupiter with the designation Kepler-1625b. More...

Heliophysics

The Voyager 2 became the second spacecraft (the first was Voyager 1) to escape the heliosphere and enter insterstellar space. More...

The Parker Solar Probe made its first perihelion pass on 05 November 2018, coming within 25 million km of the Sun. The probe will orbit the Sun over the course of the next seven years, ultimately coming closer than 7 million km from the Sun's surface.

Lunar and Planetary Science

On 11 August the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission made its "matchpoint rehearsal", bringing it to within 40 m of the surface of the asteroid Bennu at roughly 22:50 UT (6:50 p.m. EDT). This was its final test run before it performs its touch-and-go maneuver to retrieve a sample on 20 October.

Three countries have launched spacecraft to Mars which will arrive in February 2021. The United Arab Emirates Hope Mars mission launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on 19 July at 21:58:14 UT (1:58 a.m. 20 July UAE time). The Chinese Tianwen 1 Mars orbiter and lander/rover launched on 23 July at 04:41 UT from Wenchang Space Launch Center. The NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission launched successfully on 30 July at 11:50 UT (7:50 a.m. EDT).