Space, in brief

4 people left a pretend Mars base in Houston on Saturday after 378 days inside. [1]

The base is inside the Johnson Space Center, run by NASA, the US space agency. [1]

It was NASA's second year-long practice for living on Mars, called CHAPEA. [1]

Vanessa Wyche, who runs the Johnson Space Center, met the crew as they came out. [1]

Wyche said: 'These delays require patience, careful planning and greater independence.' [1]

NASA wants to learn what keeps crews healthy and working on long trips beyond Earth. [1]

NASA hopes to send people to Mars as early as the 2030s, after the Moon. [1]

Commander Elder called putting people on Mars 'not only achievable, but rather inevitable'. [1]

Next, the crew spends 2 weeks in checks and debriefs with NASA scientists. [1]

Why the farther away something is, the older the news from it

Physics sets one top speed, the speed of light, and radio travels at it too

So every message and every glimpse takes time to cross a distance

The farther away the sender, the older the news when it arrives

A crew far from Earth waits for each answer, so it must plan and decide more on its own

A far star's light left it long ago, so we see the star as it was then

Nothing from space reaches us live. A star's picture and a far crew's message are both already old when they arrive.

NASA held back every message to copy the travel time to Mars, so the crew had to plan ahead instead of waiting for answers.

The star is about 650 light-years away, so the egg-shaped gas the radio telescopes saw is Betelgeuse as it was about 650 years ago.

The Moon is close, so commands from Earth reach the craft almost at once and controllers can fly it from the ground.

On Earth and around it the delay is too small to matter for most things. It decides things only across the big distances of space.

Mission Control and the four people in the Houston base each saw only the messages that had reached them so far.

Four volunteers spent a year in NASA's pretend Mars home in Houston and came out on Saturday saying people will reach Mars.

NASA's Johnson director said they coped with limited supplies and delayed messages, and their results will come from two weeks of checks that start now. [1]

A crew stepping out after a year inside is a strong picture, and it arrives weeks before any measured results do. [1]

Its year-long test ended with the crew publicly calling a Mars landing 'achievable' and 'inevitable'. [1]

They gave up 378 days of ordinary life in a home of 158 square metres. [1]

What the year in the pretend Mars home actually showed.

The crew now begins two weeks of checks and debriefs with NASA scientists, and the reports of the exit carry no findings. [1]

Four people came out of NASA's pretend Mars home in Houston after 378 days, the second crew to finish a full year there.

Turkey plans to send its first spacecraft to the Moon in 2027. [3]

The craft, called TLM-1, is an orbiter: it will circle the Moon, not land. [3]

Tubitak Uzay, a Turkish space company, built it with DeltaV, which made its engine. [3]

Its first tests, in a thermal vacuum chamber, an airless test room, began in late October. [3]

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is booked to launch it between April and June. [3]

It will circle 100 km above the Moon, passing over both poles. [3]

Its instruments will measure radiation, surface heat and the solar wind hitting the Moon. [3]

Project manager Burak Yaglioglu said 56 of its 65 parts were made in Turkey. [3]

Turkey would be the ninth country or group to put a craft at the Moon. [3]

Engineers plan a controlled impact at the end: steering the dying craft onto a chosen spot. [3]

That crash is meant as a rehearsal for landing the second craft. [3]

Yaglioglu spoke of reaching the Moon 'with our own capabilities'. [3]

But the ride there is a US rocket, from SpaceX. [3]

TLM-2, a lander with a rover, has no launch date or rocket yet. [3]

The Moon is close, so commands from Earth reach the craft almost at once and controllers can fly it from the ground.

It holds the contract to launch Turkey's first Moon craft on a Falcon 9 in 2027. [3]

They built 56 of the orbiter's 65 parts, and the lander is meant to reuse the design. [3]

When Turkey's second Moon mission, the lander, will fly.

No launch date or rocket has been chosen for TLM-2. [3]

Turkey's first Moon orbiter began its first tests in late October, with 56 of its 65 parts made in Turkey.

Radio pictures show a small partner star disturbing the outer gas of Betelgeuse, astronomers report. [4]

Betelgeuse is a dying giant star, the shoulder of the Orion constellation. [4]

It is about 650 light-years away, so its light takes about 650 years to arrive. [4]

Betelgeuse is more than 640 times wider than the Sun. [5]

Its partner, Siwarha, orbits so close that it passes through Betelgeuse's outer gas. [4]

Lynn Matthews of MIT's Haystack Observatory led the study. [4]

Her team used the VLA in New Mexico and ALMA in Chile, two big radio telescopes. [4]

From 2021 to 2026 the star's gas swung between an egg shape and a round one. [4]

That swing matches a slow brightening and dimming of Betelgeuse every 5.9 years or so. [5]

So some of its changes come from the partner, not from Betelgeuse alone. [5]

Astronomers can find a star too faint to see by what it does to its neighbour. [4]

Space.com says Siwarha's existence was confirmed in early 2026. [4]

Universe Today says the evidence is not yet strong enough to confirm it. [5]

The same data show Betelgeuse has largely recovered from its 2020 'Great Dimming'. [4]

The star is about 650 light-years away, so the egg-shaped gas the radio telescopes saw is Betelgeuse as it was about 650 years ago.

Whether Betelgeuse's partner star is confirmed.

Space.com says Siwarha was confirmed in early 2026, while Universe Today says the evidence is not yet strong enough to confirm it. [4][5]

NASA's Swift telescope is expected to fall back to Earth within days. [6]

Swift, launched in 2004, studied gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. [6]

A robot rescue mission failed to push it higher, so NASA ended its work. [6]

On 20 October it was 275 km up, too low to beat the air's drag. [6]

Its path only crosses a band within about 21 degrees of the equator. [6]

That band is mostly ocean but crosses parts of Africa, South Asia and Latin America. [6]

Most of the 1,500 kg craft should melt; its six heavy spinning wheels may survive. [6]

LeoLabs, a company that watches objects in orbit, spoke to Space.com about the fall. [6]

It says about 10 times more objects fall back each year than five years ago. [6]

Engineers call building a craft to burn up completely 'design for demise'. [6]

NASA's own rule caps the chance of anyone being hurt at 1 in 10,000. [6]

No detailed risk study for Swift's fall has been published, an engineer told Space.com. [6]

Any surviving parts land somewhere in a band crossing Africa, South Asia and Latin America, though the risk is called very small. [6]

A telescope that studied gamma-ray bursts since 2004 is lost after its rescue failed. [6]

When and where Swift will come down.

No exact time or place has been given; its path crosses a band within about 21 degrees of the equator. [6]

How big the risk from Swift's surviving parts is.

An engineer told Space.com no detailed risk study has been published, though NASA's rule caps the risk at 1 in 10,000. [6]

NASA's Perseverance rover has found the finest dust yet seen on Mars. [7]

Perseverance has explored Jezero Crater, in Mars's northern half, since landing in 2021. [7]

Scott VanBommel, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, led the study. [7]

It appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a US science journal. [7]

Smaller grains can go deeper into the human body and are harder to clear, he said. [7]

He called Mars dust a hazard to design for, like radiation and distance from Earth. [7]

He also said smaller does not necessarily make the dust more dangerous. [7]

They must guard against the finest dust yet found on Mars, along with radiation and distance. [7]

How harmful Mars's finest dust would be to people.

The study's lead author said smaller grains go deeper into the body, and also that smaller does not necessarily mean more dangerous. [7]

Two weather satellites caught a fireball exploding over the South Atlantic on 1 April. [9]

A fireball, or bolide, is a space rock burning up in the air. [9]

US government sensors saw it too; it was brightest about 90 km up. [9]

The two were NOAA's GOES-East and Europe's Meteosat, using cameras built to spot lightning. [9]

A fireball over Alaska in April 2025 was rebuilt almost entirely from civilian sensors. [9]

Scientists used 37 earthquake stations, sound sensors, weather radar and video. [9]

A nation could mistake a natural fireball for an attack, NASA's Rob Landis warned. [9]

Planetary defence experts combine sensors, because each records a different part of the fall. [9]

Landis said he thinks a lot of smaller space rock gets through the air. [9]

Civilian satellites let scientists discuss these events openly, Landis said. [9]

Lightning cameras on civilian weather satellites give them data they can discuss openly. [9]

How many small space rocks reach the air unseen.

NASA's Rob Landis said that, in his personal view, a lot of smaller material gets through. [9]

Two weather satellites caught a fireball over the South Atlantic in April, giving scientists data they can share openly.

NASA and the US Department of Agriculture signed a deal to share satellite data. [8]

NASA chief Jared Isaacman and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins signed it in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. [8]

It is a memorandum of understanding, a written promise to work together. [8]

It covers watching crops, droughts and natural disasters from space. [8]

It is NASA's 2nd such deal with another US agency this month. [8]

On 8 October NASA signed one with the Department of Energy on nuclear power in space. [8]

Isaacman said it aims to improve the information farmers and ranchers get. [8]

The report lists four areas of work and names no budget. [8]

The new agreement is meant to bring them NASA's satellite data on crops, droughts and disasters. [8]

What the NASA and farm department deal will cost or deliver.

The report lists four areas of work and names no budget. [8]

Mars passes 1.2 degrees from Jupiter in the morning sky on 16 November. [10]

A fist held at arm's length covers about 10 degrees of sky. [10]

Jupiter will outshine Mars about 13 times when they meet. [10]

Saturn is best in the evening, well up in the southern sky. [10]

Venus climbs higher before dawn all month and is brightest near the month's end. [10]

Mercury rises well before the Sun from about 16 to 26 November. [10]

The guide's times are for watchers about 40 degrees north of the equator. [10]

NASA says Voyager 1 will be one light-day from Earth on 18 November. [11]

A light-day is how far light travels in 24 hours: about 26 billion km. [11]

NASA has put up a countdown clock for the moment. [11]

It will be the first human-made object to reach that distance. [11]

Voyager 1 was built for a five-year trip past Jupiter and Saturn. [11]

It reaches the mark after 49 years, 2 months and 13 days of flight. [11]

In 2024 engineers spent weeks fixing a memory fault on board. [11]

At that distance a radio message takes a whole day to arrive. [11]

In 2024 each message there and back already took at least 45 hours. [11]

Physicists measure such distances by light's travel time, at about 300,000 km a second. [11]

Experts estimate its 3 nuclear power units can keep it working into the 2030s. [11]