Sarah Scoles
From This Author
Can You Own Part of an Asteroid? How Asteroid Mining Is Changing Space Law
Coal miners mine coal; diamond miners mine diamonds; gold miners mine gold; space miners (will) mine space—and anything in it that has precious metals or compounds that can be whisked into rocket fuel. But,...
Russia and Europe Want a Moon Colony—Why Is NASA So Focused on Mars?
Only 12 people—all Americans—have put their boots on the Moon. Today, however, NASA has no plans to send humans back to our pockmarked satellite. Instead, its space pioneers will shoot straight to Mars (and...
Want Your Own Personal Satellite? Reaching Space Is Becoming (Relatively) Cheap
Satellites are shrinking, and so is the cost to build them and shoot them up into orbit.
Cubesats, which weigh 1.33 kilograms or less, have become popular for researchers with grants and federal agencies like...
Is Life Swimming the Vast Oceans on Outer Solar System Moons? Here’s How We’ll Find Out
To find life beyond Earth, astrobiologists like to say we need to “follow the water.” Even the hardiest terrestrial microbes, like tardigrades, need a little liquid water now and then. As we begin exploring...
Five Missions That Will Help Stop an Asteroid Hitting Earth
Every day, Earth is hit with more than 100 tons of dusty, rocky material from space. Most of this debris is small enough that it burns up in the atmosphere, appearing as shooting stars....
Who Will Become the First Martian? A Rundown of the Race to the Red Planet
In Ridley Scott’s film version of Andy Weir’s The Martian, to be released October 2, astronaut Mark Watney has to eat potatoes by himself on Mars after a dust storm strands him there. NASA...
What Water on Mars Means for the Future of Space Exploration
Geomorphologist Lujendra Ojha of Georgia Tech first noticed strange streaks on Mars in 2011. They appeared on the walls of craters — dark, downhill smears that appeared and then disappeared. He and colleagues watched...
