spacecraft

Four witnesses to a single crossing. On November 10, 2017, the four MMS spacecraft flew through an invisible boundary in the solar wind where magnetic field lines reconfigure and release energy.

Meteorologists have grown used to trusting neural networks: the GraphCast model predicts Earth's weather days ahead by drawing on global snapshots of the atmosphere. But this 'brain' can be transplanted to another planet — where the air is thin and the Sun warms differently.

A solar sail doesn't move on water but in space, and it's pushed not by wind but by the pressure of sunlight. Such a spacecraft can fly for years without spending a drop of fuel. Steering it is like sailing a yacht across an ocean where the currents are planetary gravity and the gusts of wind are shifting sunlight.

Every civilization is born with a gravitational debt. The home planet's mass determines the loan amount, and the Tsiolkovsky equation is the interest rate applied to each kilogram of payload. To send a probe to the stars, you have to pay with fuel, and the debt grows exponentially.

On a scorching afternoon, a stifling haze hangs over the city, and not a single cloud is on the horizon. Usually, in such weather, all you can do is wait for nature to take pity and send some cool relief. But what if shade and rain could be switched on schedule, like a light in a room?

A research probe is planned for the nearest black hole — a region of spacetime whose gravity traps even light. After a hundred years of flight, the spacecraft will enter orbit around the mysterious object to answer a key question: are we looking at a black hole or a neutron star — the ultra-dense remnant of a massive star, compressed to nuclear…

A handful of coins accelerates to one-fifth the speed of light. That's what Coracle interstellar probes will be like — tiny spacecraft weighing just a few grams, each with an ultrathin sail film. A powerful laser beam pushes them forward: light presses on the sail like wind fills a yacht's sails, except instead of air, it's a stream of photons.

The Red Planet is surrounded by the rubble of failed worlds — rocky boulders stuffed with metal. Shipping a kilogram of steel from Earth to Mars costs as much as several cars. It's far cheaper to pick up space junk right in orbit.

An icy rock is flying through the Solar System on an open trajectory — coming in from interstellar space, swinging around the Sun, and heading back into the dark.

Today's Martian surface is a cold, nearly airless home. Many dream of a full renovation: warming the planet, filling it with air from carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

On March 30, 2022, two spacecraft — BepiColombo and STEREO-A — simultaneously felt a shockwave from the Sun. The first was at 0.6 times the Earth-Sun distance, the second at exactly one such distance.

The Comet Interceptor mission launches without a target. The spacecraft freezes at a point of space equilibrium, like a fighter jet on combat standby: engine warmed up, but takeoff only on alert.