Q&A with Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator on NASA’s InSight mission (members only)

Using the sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have managed to detect a vast plume of water vapor spewing from the southern pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, a jet extending nearly 6,000 miles and feeding a previously detected torus circling the entire planet.

A commercial rocket under development by Firefly Aerospace will conduct its first orbital test flight in 2019 from a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California that will become vacant with the retirement of the venerable Delta 2 booster later this year, the company announced Tuesday.

Soaring into a clear early evening sky, SpaceX’s second Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from a seaside launch complex Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before a crowd of thousands of space enthusiasts.