The balloon files

The US Government has released a new trove of documents on various cases of “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” and while they’re mostly camera anomalies, other drones and slow, far away balloons picked up by Reaper thermal sensors, some people will always assume they’re proof of alien craft.

After Artemis

The US has maintained its superiority in space because it has a clear vision of where it wants to be and is willing to invest to achieve it. Artemis II has come home from its epic trip around the Moon, but Australia is still on the launch pad. It is time we took off.

The sky’s not the limit

Artemis II has returned humans to deep space for the first time in fifty years but the forces that brought us back are the same ones that kept us away and until scientific discovery displaces geopolitics and profit, the next fifty years will look just like the last.

4 visions of our future in space

NASA’s flight around the moon is a welcome reminder of its technical achievement and human ambition and in the background, decisions about what happens next and who benefits are already taking shape.

Some of our black holes are missing

When an international team of scientists, led by Monash University, working with the global network of gravitational-wave detectors measuring tiny ripples in spacetime, recently examined the masses of merging black holes, they noticed something strange – a gap where black holes should exist, but don’t.

What took so long?

The successful launch of the Artemis II mission to circumnavigate the Moon is a welcome boost for NASA and manned space flight, but why has it taken half a century to return there after Apollo?

The long road back to the Moon

Rather than pursuing a single dramatic landing on the Moon, the U.S. is now pivoting to the steady, repeatable work of building a lasting foothold there and redefining humanity’s relationship with space itself.

Artemis pushed back again

NASA has announced major changes to the Artemis program. The next mission, Artemis III, will now no longer land humans on the surface of the moon, but will instead feature a series of technology tests in Low Earth orbit. Artemis IV will then be the first human landing on the moon, sometime in 2028, we hope.

To Artemis and beyond

NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission is not just a technological milestone; it is a signal to allies, competitors, industries and future generations that America remains serious about developing its presence in space.

Life as we know it

We live in a very exciting time when answers to some of the oldest questions humanity has conceived are within our grasp, including whether Earth is the only place that harbours life.

Watch the skies

Sydney is hosting the world’s largest space conference, attracting astronauts and heads of space agencies from around the planet, but what does the average Australian think about space?

QUT to keep Australia’s first lunar rover on track

QUT researchers are leading development of navigation systems for Australia’s first lunar rover to ensure it stays on course when it lands on the Moon around the end of this decade.