Q&A with Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s director of science

On Aug. 17, gravity waves rippled through the solar system, slightly squeezing and stretching the space Earth occupies, the result of a catastrophic collision of two compact-but-massive neutron stars, producing a so-called “kilonova” explosion that seeded the local environment with a flood of heavy elements ranging from gold and platinum to uranium and beyond, scientists said Monday.

United Launch Alliance has released a replay of the May 5 liftoff of NASA’s InSight mission to Mars aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, as viewed by aft- and forward-facing cameras on the two-stage launch vehicle.

A week after two space probes from China and United Arab Emirates slipped into orbit around Mars, NASA’s $2.4 billion Perseverance rover, by far the most complex and ambitious of the three, will plunge into the red planet’s atmosphere Thursday for an automated white-knuckle descent.