Q&A with Marc Rayman, chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission (members only)

If China’s lunar exploration program goes according to plan, scientists could send a robotic lander to pick up samples from the far side of the moon and return them to Earth by the early 2020s, a top Chinese space official said.

An automated mini-helicopter driven by two fast-spinning, counter-rotating rotors took off from the surface of Mars, hovered for 30 seconds, then successfully landed Monday to complete the historic first powered flight of an aircraft on another planet.

The discovery of puzzling bright spots on Ceres, the Texas-sized world now being studied by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, has scientists wondering whether the features could be plumes from volcanoes launching material into space.