The first manned mission of NASA’s Artemis Moon program could begin in just a few days, with the launch window opening on April 1. And as preparations are underway, the space agency is refocusing its plans to establish a human presence on the Moon. NASA has announced major changes to its approach to landing on the Moon that are expected to be implemented in the coming years, including canceling its plan to build an orbiting station called Gateway. Read on to learn more about the agency’s new vision for the Moon, along with other interesting science stories from this week.
Entrance gate outside, moon base inside
Just weeks after making sweeping changes to its Artemis program, NASA this week announced even more changes to its plans to return astronauts to the Moon. Most notably, the space agency is abandoning the Lunar Gateway project, which was intended to be the first space station to orbit the Moon. The Gateway, an international collaboration, was supposed to support not only lunar surface exploration, but also deep space missions. But the writing has been on the wall for some time; In the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts last May, Gateway was one of the programs selected for the chopping block. Now, NASA is officially “pausing” it and planning to build a $20 billion moon base instead.
“NASA is committed to once again achieving the nearly impossible, returning to the Moon before the end of President Trump’s term, building a moon base, establishing a permanent presence, and doing other things necessary to ensure American leadership in space,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at the agency’s Ignition event Tuesday.
According to NASA, the moon base plan has three phases: the first using contractors to send rovers and equipment to the Moon through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program; followed by establishing a “semi-habitable infrastructure” with astronauts on the ground and in collaboration with other space agencies; and finally adding “heavy infrastructure” to support long-term stays on the lunar surface, including the Italian Space Agency’s Multi-Purpose Habitat and the Canadian Space Agency’s Lunar Utility Vehicle. NASA says its goal is to begin this plan with crewed landings on the Moon every six months after the Artemis V missions, which are currently planned for 2028.
Comet 41P draws a reverse card
A study published this week in astronomical journal Describes what is said to be the first observation of a comet reversing its orbit. Observations made over a period of several months in 2017 show that comet 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresak begins to rotate more slowly after passing close to the Sun, and picks up speed again by December of the same year. Its spin period, measured using NASA’s Neal Gehrels Swift Observatory, was estimated to be about 46–60 hours in May 2017, but later Hubble Space Telescope observations showed it was only 14 hours, according to NASA. Researchers say that it may have happened that due to the heat of the sun the comet’s ice melted, due to which gases started coming out from its edges.
“Streams of gas rising from the surface may act like tiny thrusters,” study author David Jewitt of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement. “If those jets are unevenly distributed, they can dramatically change how a comet, especially a small one, rotates.” Jewitt compares it to moving a carousel. “If it’s turning in one direction, and then you apply pressure to it, you can slow it down and make it reverse.”
Comet 41P is believed to come from the Kuiper Belt and passes through the inner Solar System every 5.4 years. It is small, with a core about .6 miles across, and researchers found that it has become less active in recent years, indicating that changes are occurring on the surface. Although it is thought to have been in this orbit for about 1,500 years, it is now rapidly evolving, and the rotational change – which if continued could cause structural instability – may mark the beginning of the end for it. “I expect this nucleus to self-destruct very quickly,” Jewitt said.
Saturn in a new light
Stunning images of Saturn, released this week by NASA, ESA and CSA, provide a more detailed look at the many layers of the ringed planet’s “busy” atmosphere. The images, which show storms, clouds at different depths, Saturn’s “ribbon wave” jet stream and more, were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope in 2024. Read more about it here.
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