Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

Strapped into a new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule making its maiden flight, Whitson, test pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, European Space Agency astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Hungarian engineer Tibor Kapu roared away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 2:31 a.m. EDT.

Using 21st century images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have reconstructed the view Neil Armstrong had outside the window of the Apollo 11 lunar module as he guided the spacecraft to a safe landing site on the moon 50 years ago.

The first images from the European-built Solar Orbiter mission are the closest ever taken of the sun, revealing previously unseen mini-flares nicknamed “campfires” that may offer hints about what makes the solar corona, or outer atmosphere, hotter than the sun’s surface.