Megastorms on Saturn are churning up its atmosphere. Researchers in the United States used data from the Very Large Array to look at radio emissions coming from the ringed planet and found evidence of huge storms that seem to persist for centuries. These megastorms bring ammonia from upper atmospheric layers deeper into the planet in the form of ammonia rain. Pictured: A radio image of Saturn taken by the VLA in 2015. Darker areas represent higher concentrations of ammonia. Image credit: R. J. Sault and I. de Pater.
NASA is hoping that private space stations will replace the ISS. The International Space Station is due to be retired in 2030, but NASA is aiming to have a new, commercially-run station in place two years before that happens. All current ISS partners have committed to support the station until its retirement except Russia, which plans to build its own space station.
NASA is increasing the SLS’s CubeSat-carrying capacity. The Space Launch System rocket, which had its inaugural flight last November, was originally designed to carry small CubeSats along with its main payload, such as November’s Artemis I capsule. Due to the increasing popularity of low-cost, accessible CubeSat technologies, the SLS will now have additional mounting locations that can accommodate more kinds of CubeSats.