Marina Koren
Elon Musk Is Maybe, Actually, Strangely, Going to Do This Mars Thing
From his private Cape Canaveral, the billionaire is manifesting his own interplanetary reality—whatever the cost.
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Paul Spella / Getty / The Atlantic The New ‘Right Stuff’ Is Money and Luck
Rich people are heading to space, and they’re changing what it means to be an astronaut.
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STR / AFP / Getty Don’t Fall to Pieces Just Because China’s Rocket Is
No one knows where the discarded piece of hardware might land, but there's no reason to panic.
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America’s moon effort is getting weirder
We’re living in an exciting—yet strange—moment in American spaceflight history. Marina Koren explains why. This is The Atlantic’s weekly email to subscribers.
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Getty / The Atlantic The World’s Richest Men Are Brawling Over the Moon
NASA gave Elon Musk’s SpaceX a coveted contract for a lunar mission. Jeff Bezos plans to fight for it.
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Jason Major/ NASA / JPL-Caltech No, You’re Crying About a Helicopter on Mars
NASA just flew a tiny (and totally lovable) robot on another planet for the first time.
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O. Hainaut / ESO An Interstellar Visitor Had a Sad Story to Tell
A hint of warmth from our sun helped reveal a mysterious comet’s secrets.
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Courtesy of Joshua Rhoades An Eerie Glow in the Sky Might Come From Mars’s Direction
A spacecraft on its way to Jupiter made a surprising discovery about interplanetary dust.
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Kevin Dietsch / Bloomberg / Johnny Louis / … There’s Nothing Historic About Biden’s NASA Pick
After 62 years, the space agency will have to wait a little longer for its first female leader.
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Getty / NASA / Adam Maida / The … Who Would Kidnap a Space Telescope?
‘‘We hope pirates don’t take it,” one astrophysicist said.
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Cedric von Niederhausern / The Atlantic This Black Hole Probably Shouldn’t Exist
New observations have prompted astronomers to rethink their theories about some of the universe’s invisible objects.
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NASA No One Has Seen a Mars Landing Quite Like This
NASA engineers have captured a rover’s swift descent to the surface of the red planet.
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Adam Maida / The Atlantic Scientists Really, Really Want a Piece of Mars
A new NASA rover has jump-started an intense effort to finally bring home a pristine sample from the red planet.
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Getty / The Atlantic America’s New Vision of Astronauts
Once, American astronauts were white men with buzz cuts. Now they’re billionaires and a few lucky normal people.
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NASA The Simple Task That Mars Made Impossible
NASA spent nearly two years trying to wrangle a probe designed to burrow into the planet’s soil.
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Chip Somodevilla / Getty What Happens to the Space Force Now?
President Biden is inheriting one of Trump’s pet projects.
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Ian Waldie / Alamy Astronomers Are Keeping a Close Watch on the Next Star Over
They have noticed something intriguing coming from the direction of Proxima Centauri.
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Jose Luis Pelaez / Getty Put On a Hat, Please
I’m just a kindly winter evangelist, standing in front of your outdoor restaurant table, asking you to wear layers.
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The Atlantic Jupiter and Saturn Are Just Showing Off Now
This year is ending with a rare cosmic alignment.
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NASA Astronomers Are Now Obsessed With a Particular Gas on Venus
If phosphine is lurking in the planet’s atmosphere, the source could, just maybe, be alien life.
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NASA The Voyagers Found a Small Surprise in Interstellar Space
The spacecraft are still feeling the sun billions of miles from home.
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