Moon

NASA's Artemis mission plans to see humans return to the moon by 2025, with long-term plans to build the first lunar base on its surface. To begin, astronauts will dwell for days at a time in SpaceX's Starship, which is capable of landing and taking off again from the moon. Over time, NASA plans to harvest minerals from the lunar surface to construct an oxygen pipeline as well as the rest of the base. Watch this video to see a sophisticated, detailed description of NASA's plans for the base.

After decades of dormancy, NASA and SpaceX hope the Artemis program will provide opportunities for lunar resource extraction. Countries like India, China, and the UAE have also shown interest in developing future lunar economies.

And why is the next cohort headed there? The geological conditions in Flagstaff, Arizona, can easily echo those of the moon, making the area a prime spot to train astronauts. This article explains how scientists crafted these training grounds and why astronomers are drawn to the nearly century-old city.

How exactly does the moon move, and why does it move that way? In this ridiculously comprehensive interactive explainer, you can conduct experiments to see how the moon rotates and as it moves around the Earth, while learning how gravity works by controlling the path and speed of different objects. Dive into this beautiful, simple explainer to learn the basics on gravity and the moon.

Ideas about the existence of life on the moon have evolved throughout history. In the 17th century, Galileo's observations suggested the moon could be inhabited, leading to fictional speculations about lunar life. In the 19th century, stories were published claiming the discovery of various creatures, including human-bats. The Apollo missions in the 20th century explored the possibility of life there, but further exploration showed this idea to be less likely than before. Read and explore the history of human speculation of life on the moon here.

On March 2, 2025, Firefly Aerospace landed its Blue Ghost craft on the Moon. The private company then operated the craft for two weeks, conducting surface operations and becoming the first private space company to have a fully successful mission on the Moon. This short video captures pristine, dramatic footage of the mission's successful touchdown.

Photos taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile in March 2025 captured a blood moon and the Milky Way galaxy within the same field of view. The moon appears red from the bluer parts of its reflected sunlight being scattered by Earth's atmosphere.

Is there water on the moon? In 2020, NASA's SOFIA mission confirmed the existence of water on the sunlit area of the lunar surface. Early astronomers mistook the dark spots on the Moon for oceans, but they are actually plains of dark, lava-produced...

Using NASA's next-generation megarocket, the Space Launch System, Artemis I will take an uncrewed spacecraft on a 42-day journey around the moon. Subsequent missions plan to land the first woman on the lunar surface.

Earth's colorless, lifeless moon is often portrayed as devoid of an atmosphere. However, this fascinating article describes the very thin layer of gases floating above the surface of our celestial neighbor, a layer so thin it's technically known as...