Tag: nasa

The “Special Regions” on Mars Where It Is Totally Forbidden to Explore, for a Haunting Reason

Even as momentum builds toward sending humans to Mars in the next decade, several regions on the Red Planet remain off-limits to robotic exploration. The reason has nothing to do with distance or terrain. Instead, it reflects a long-standing international effort to prevent Earth microbes from contaminating potentially habitable zones.

Known as special regions, these areas could offer the best conditions for Mars life detection. No spacecraft, however, is currently authorized to explore them. The restriction stems from planetary protection guidelines that prioritize scientific integrity over operational ambition.

Recent data from NASA’s Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater has intensified the conversation. In 2025, the rover identified organic molecules in rock formations linked to water-rich environments, prompting renewed scrutiny of current exploration limits.

The Legal and Scientific Shield Around Mars’s Special Regions

Special regions are Martian locations where environmental conditions may support microbial life. These include areas with intermittent warmth or subsurface water. The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) sets the criteria: any zone with temperatures above –28°C and water activity above 0.5 is flagged for protection.

The policy draws legal weight from Article IX of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which obligates nations to avoid biological contamination of other worlds. COSPAR’s planetary protection policy functions as the global implementation standard, informing mission protocols for agencies such as NASA, ESA, and CNSA.

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RETURN TO THE MOON: Artemis II Historic Crewed Lunar Mission Delayed 48 Hours Due to Extreme Cold, Set to Take Off on February 8

The return of US astronauts to the moon orbit is easily the most overlooked contemporary event.

Ever since 1972, no human being has been to the moon surface or its orbit. But now, the Donald J. Trump administration is gearing up for a historic return.

The Artemis II will take American astronauts back to the moon, and a first mission, to orbit our satellite, will take off in less than 10 days.

The mission was today bumped two days ahead because of the inclement weather in Florida.

NASA delayed a the fueling test (‘wet dress rehersal’) for the Artemis II moon rocket to Monday (February 2), and that pushed the historic launch back to no earlier than 11:20pm EST on February 8.

CBS News reported:

“The long-awaited Artemis II mission will use NASA’s huge Space Launch System rocket to boost three NASA astronauts and a Canadian crewmate on a trip around the moon and back, the first such flight since the final Apollo mission 54 years ago. The upcoming mission will set the stage for another crew to attempt a landing near the moon’s south pole in 2028.

The Artemis II launch had been targeted for next Friday, assuming a leak-free fueling test Saturday. But with the test delay, and the time needed for NASA to analyze the results, the agency opted to give up launch opportunities on Feb. 6 and 7. If the rocket is not off the ground by Feb. 11, the flight will slip to early March.”

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Astronauts Helicoptered to Hospital After Mystery Evacuation From Space Station

Earlier this month, NASA announced that it had to cancel a scheduled spacewalk, citing a “medical situation” affecting a “single crew member who is stable” on board the International Space Station.

The mystery illness eventually led to the space agency staging the first medical evacuation in 25 years of continuous operation on board the aging orbital outpost, rushing four astronauts back to Earth in a move that brought the station’s number of occupants from seven to a skeleton crew of just three.

While the medical incident only affected a single astronaut, who has yet to be identified for privacy reasons, all four members of the Crew-11 mission cut their time on board the ISS short by weeks, safely splashing down off the coast of San Diego early Thursday morning.

The four astronauts were airlifted to the Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego via helicopter for a “planned overnight stay at a local medical facility for additional evaluation,” according to a January 16 statement. After being “released as expected,” they continued their journey to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will “continue standard postflight reconditioning and evaluations.”

Do you know anything about what caused the evacuation from the ISS? Drop us a line at tips@futurism.com. We can keep you anonymous.

“All crew members remain stable,” the space agency reassured. “To protect the crew’s medical privacy, no specific details regarding the condition or individual will be shared.”

It’s an exceedingly rare event, highlighting the challenges inherent to providing healthcare in space. While hundreds of miles above the surface, specialized care is hard, if not impossible, to execute. While astronauts undergo rigorous EMT-level training so they can respond to emergencies on board the station, they aren’t full-blown medical professionals, and can only do so much under the direction of doctors back on Earth.

There’s a lot to still learn about providing care during medical emergencies, particularly when it comes to long-duration space exploration missions into deep space. According to a 2022 study, there still are plenty of “gaps in knowledge regarding the potential for unanticipated in-flight medical events to affect crew health and capacity, and potentially compromise mission success.”

As researchers from Northumbria University in Newcastle point out in a recent essay for The Conversation, medical emergencies are remarkably rare on the ISS, despite being expected to occur on average every three years. Studies have shown that the most common health issues astronauts experience are skin irritation, congestion, disruptions to sleep, and in-flight injuries — most of which are ironically caused by exercise, which is designed to protect astronauts’ long-term health.

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CONFIRMED: NASA’s Crew-11 To Make Early Return to Earth After ‘Serious Medical Condition’ With Astronaut 

Medical emergency in space.

Once again, an emergency in space makes the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) change its plans in an urgent fashion, after two astronauts were left stranded in orbit by a faulty Boeing Starliner craft.

This time, a ‘serious medical condition’ with a crew member aboard the International Space Station will make NASA bring the astronaut and the three crewmates back to Earth months earlier than planned.

This is the first emergency of its kind in the ISS’ 25-year history.

Reuters reported:

“NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters on Thursday in a short-notice press conference in Washington that he and medical officials made the decision to return the astronaut, whom he did not identify, because ‘the capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station’.”

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A Mysterious “Medical Concern” in Space Caused NASA to Cancel a Spacewalk—Here’s Everything We Know

A concerning development began unfolding in orbit on Wednesday, as NASA officials revealed a health incident that led to the postponement of a planned spacewalk aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

“NASA is postponing the Thursday, Jan. 8, spacewalk,” read a portion of a statement that appeared on the official ISS blog on January 7, adding that NASA officials were “monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex.”

The unnerving news from NASA arrived in the middle of a week already filled with unrest related to a tragic incident in Minneapolis, which involved the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an agent with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

In NASA’s initial update, few details were provided about the nature of the “medical concern” that led to the postponement of the spacewalk, citing privacy issues that the agency said made it inappropriate “for NASA to share more details about the crew member” at that time.

“The situation is stable,” the statement from NASA Communications added, noting that “NASA will share additional details, including a new date for the upcoming spacewalk, later.”

Expedition 74 Sees an Interruption

The developments aboard the ISS arrived as NASA’s Expedition 74 crew had been completing final preparation for what would have been its first spacewalk of 2026.

According to initial plans, astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman were scheduled to conduct a six-and-a-half-hour excursion that would begin a series of power system upgrades, including installing hardware and routing cables for future roll-out solar arrays.

In addition to plans related to the spacewalk, the ISS crew has been involved in research this week that includes physics and microbiology experiments, with additional research involving Earth observation, studies on cryogenic fluid storage, ultraviolet microbial disinfection, and AI-assisted transcription of crew activity logs.

Amid the Expedition 74 team’s work, international crew members were also providing support for their operations, according to an update issued at the ISS blog earlier on the same day that the medical situation was later revealed. At that time, NASA officials said support teams had continued to undertake overnight imaging of Earth and maintenance of station systems, operations which were expected to continue during Thursday’s planned spacewalk.

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BACK TO THE MOON: NASA’s Artemis II Set To Send Astronauts Into Lunar Orbit as Soon as February

During the second year of Donald J. Trump’s second term, the US is going to make the moon great again.

This elusive goal, that no nation has attained since way back in 1972, is the number one priority of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), pushing the Mars mission further down the line.

The Artemis’ mission is to return American astronauts to the moon and establish a permanent lunar base — and it is finally about to launch its first crewed flight.

CNN reported:

“The landmark mission, dubbed Artemis II, is on track to lift off as soon as February. The highly anticipated endeavor will mark the first time astronauts have ventured beyond the bounds of near-Earth orbit since the final Apollo mission in 1972.

Artemis II will send a group of four astronauts — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen — on a trip around the moon.”

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Mysterious Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS “Comes Alive” Near the Sun — NASA on Alert

The much-anticipated interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS has finally reached its closest approach to the Sun — and it’s doing things no natural object should. As telescopes around the world capture its fly-by, early data reveals unexpected behavior, deepening one of the most intriguing space mysteries in years.

This massive, Manhattan-sized object is only the third known interstellar body to enter our solar system, after ‘Oumuamua (2017) and 2I/Borisov (2019). But 3I/ATLAS is turning out to be the most enigmatic of all — and even NASA scientists are struggling to explain what they’re seeing.

A visitor unlike any other

Discovered in July by the ATLAS telescope in Chile, 3I/ATLAS immediately drew attention due to its hyperbolic trajectory, confirming that it originated beyond our solar system. But what truly astonished astronomers was its size and chemical makeup.

New data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows that the object’s coma — the glowing halo of gas and dust — is dominated by carbon dioxide (CO₂), with a CO₂-to-water ratio of nearly 8:1, far higher than any known comet. Scientists also noted a strange anti-tail — a stream of dust pointing toward the Sun rather than away from it — a phenomenon rarely seen and poorly understood.

Even more puzzling, the object emits a brilliant green hue, a sign that something “has switched on” as it neared the Sun, according to recent optical observations. Some astronomers suspect this is due to chemical excitation from solar radiation, while others say the spectral pattern doesn’t match any known natural process.

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Harvard Scientist Accuses NASA of Coverup About Mysterious Comet

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has once again leveled accusations against NASA during an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, this time claiming the agency is deliberately withholding a key image of the mysterious interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

The alleged photograph, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), shows the comet when it passed within 30 million kilometers of Mars, which is a rare close encounter for an object originating from outside our solar system, according to Loeb, who chaired the Harvard’s Department of Astronomy from 2011 to 2020.

Loeb also said that he directly contacted the HiRISE principal investigator to request access to the data, but his request fell on deaf ears.

“I wrote to the principal investigator of HiRISE, asking, ‘Can I get the data? I’m a scientist,’” said Loeb, who said he received “no response” from NASA.

The comet, designated 3I/ATLAS, has exhibited several unusual characteristics that have fueled speculation. Unlike typical comets, it displays jet-like emissions directed toward the Sun rather than away from it, a phenomenon that defies standard models of cometary outgassing, the New York Post reports. Additionally, 3I/ATLAS lacks a visible cometary tail and has been observed spouting nickel without accompanying iron that compositions not commonly seen in natural solar system bodies.

Loeb has previously speculated that the Manhattan-sized object could be of alien origin, though he tempers this with caution. In his view, the more probable explanation is “terrestrial stupidity” rather than evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Nonetheless, the comet’s non-gravitational acceleration and its trajectory raise questions. Loeb has suggested these features could indicate reconnaissance activity if the object were artificial, though he emphasizes this as a low-probability scenario.

“If 3I/ATLAS is a massive mothership, it will likely continue along its original gravitational path and ultimately exit the Solar system,” Loeb wrote in a blog post in September. “In that case, the Oberth maneuver might apply to the mini-probes it releases at perihelion towards Solar system planets.”

“Science is guided by evidence and not by expectations,” the Harvard astrophysicist continued. “We can find the answer to the above question by monitoring the sky during November and December 2025, and searching for any unusual activity of 3I/ATLAS or any new objects that came out of it.”

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3I/ATLAS is Leaving a Mysterious “Hidden” Trail of Particles in Its Wake—Now Scientists Have a Plan to Intercept It

While comet 3I/ATLAS and its dusty tail remain far out of the reach of Earthly spacecraft, astronomers say the unusual interstellar object has produced a secondary “hidden” trail of charged particles marking its path through our solar system.

Now, a pair of scientists with the European Space Agency (ESA) has proposed a bold idea: it may be possible to sail a pair of NASA and ESA spacecraft through the mysterious visitor’s “ion tail.”

The idea was advanced by a pair of researchers in a new paper, which argues that the trajectory of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera spacecraft could allow them to pass directly through the trail of ions left in 3I/ATLAS’s wake.

Doing so might offer astronomers a rare opportunity to collect samples of material from other worlds, which the odd interstellar comet has ejected during its unprecedented visit.

Mission Into an Interstellar Object’s Odd “Ion Tail”

Between October 30 and November 6, 2025, the trajectories of the Europa Clipper and Hera space missions may briefly align with the ion trail left by 3I/ATLAS, allowing their instruments to collect information through detections of charged particles carried outward from the object by the solar wind.

“During the period 30 October – 6 November 2025, it is predicted that Europa Clipper will potentially be immersed within the ion tail of 3I/ATLAS, providing the opportunity to detect the signatures of an interstellar comet’s ion tail, write authors Samuel Grant and Geraint Jones in their paper, which appeared on the preprint arXiv.org server on October 15, 2025.

“Characteristic changes to the solar wind are also expected to be observed,” the authors say, which will likely include what they characterize as “a magnetic draping structure” potentially emanating from the comet.

Even prior to Europa Clipper’s potential passage through the mysterious ion tail of 3I/ATLAS, Grant and Jones believe that the ESA’s Hera spacecraft “will possibly be immersed within the ion tail of 3I/ATLAS during the period 25 October – 1 November 2025.”

Neither spacecraft will be endangered during their potential transit of the interstellar comet’s tail of charged particles, although the implications of doing so could end up being profound, in that they may offer the first opportunity to make indirect observations of material samples from another star system.

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NASA goes dark hours before first look at interstellar object moving closer to Earth

NASA has gone dark just hours before humans get the closest look at the mysterious object barreling through our solar system. 

The interstellar object dubbed 3I/ATLAS will come within 18 million miles of Mars on October 3, its closest flyby of any planet this year.

Two space probes orbiting the Red Planet, Mars Express and ExoMars, are preparing to take Earth’s best picture and closest scans of the strange visitor, which scientists have widely concluded is an unusual comet from a distant solar system. 

However, when those readings come in, America’s space agency may remain completely silent about what the object really is.

NASA has announced that its official website will not be updated during the government shutdown, which has resulted in thousands of federal employees being sent home without pay.

It’s unclear whether NASA staff will make any announcements regarding the object’s close pass by Mars, similar to the history-making press conference that revealed the discovery of microbial life on Mars in September.

The shutdown couldn’t have come at a worse time, as scientists say Friday’s flyby could answer many questions about the mysterious comet, including whether it’s actually an object of extraterrestrial origin.

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has maintained that 3I/ATLAS has too many confounding characteristics to be a simple comet streaking through the solar system.

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