The “alien” is actually a potato. Specifically, it is a purple tuber nicknamed Spudnik-1, grown and photographed by Pettit.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more. This ...

A strange, tentacled object that went viral online was revealed to be a space-grown purple potato. Astronaut Don Pettit cultivated the unusual specimen during a microgravity gardening experiment, ...

Astronaut Hansen reported huge swaths of brown hues and tinges of green. The tan striations may be iron oxide (as in rust) ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Fusion drive spaceship arriving in Mars orbit, illustration. NASA plans a 2028 nuclear-powered Mars mission using SR-1 Freedom and ...

NASA’s Dragonfly will explore the air, land and seas of Titan, Saturn’s most mysterious moon NASA plans to launch a wildly ambitious nuclear-powered octocopter to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in 2028 ...

Free-return trajectory – a path that loops around the Moon and returns to Earth without propulsion Permanently shadowed regions – areas near the lunar poles that never receive sunlight and may contain ...

NASA unveiled a new vision for its near-term future Tuesday, including construction of a complete moon base, a major increase in robotic missions and a nuclear-powered spacecraft to bring a slew of ...

Donald Trump has hailed the astronauts of the Artemis II mission, saying they have “made history and made all of America ...

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"Mars’ wind has often carved odd shapes into the surface through a combination of physical and chemical weathering processes.

The NASA-led Artemis II mission, carrying a four-person crew beyond Earth orbit for the first time since 1972, conducted a ...