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.

Rationalising space logistics

Space logistics – the technologies used to deliver supplies to satellites and space stations – need more attention as mankind’s use of space continues to multiply.

Was there life on Mars?

A team of researchers says a sample collected by a NASA rover contains a potential biosignature which could suggest the red planet once hosted microbial life.

The long hunt for Planet X

The search for a “Planet X” on the fringes of the solar system has yielded numerous discoveries of small objects in the “Kuiper Belt” but the chances of finding another large planet appear to be diminishing.

Earth’s visitor from Alpha Centauri

Another interstellar object – 3I/ATLAS is speeding through our solar system and, as next-generation observatories such as Rubin swing into operation, we may discover interstellar visitors are far more common than previously thought.

Do look up

The space economy presents new investment opportunities as commercial space resource ventures grow, but investors must assess the risks and regulatory challenges involved as well as the potential for profit.

Star wars

The arms race developing between the United States and China is drawing in their respective space industries as each state aims for strategic advantage.

Extraordinary claims

‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ − an astronomer explains the sheer weight evidence scientists need to claim major discoveries such as potentially finding extraterrestrial life.

The waters of Mars

Although a barren desert today, Mars had oceans billions of years ago and recent studies of meteorite strikes and marsquakes hint at a remnant underground ocean of liquid water on the Red Planet.

The return of Kosmos 482

More than 50 years after trying and entirely failing to reach Venus, a Soviet spacecraft is about to tumble from orbit back down to Earth.

The power of persistence

Knowing what is going on in orbit is getting harder—yet hardly less necessary. But new technologies are emerging to cope with the challenge, including some that have come from Australian civilian research.