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What's New in Lunar & Planetary Science

The CNSA (China) Chang'e 4 lunar farside mission launched successfully, at 2:23 a.m. Beijing time, 08 December (18:23 UT, 07 Dec.). It subsequently went into lunar orbit at 08:45 UT on 12 December.

The OSIRIS-REx mission successfully arrived within about 20 km of asteroid Bennu at about 17:00 UT (12:00 noon EST) on 03 December. It has made its first flyby of the asteroid, 7 km above the north pole. More...

The NASA InSight mission landed on Mars in the Elysium Planitia region on 26 November at 19:52:59 UT (2:52:59 p.m. EST), returned its first image (with the transparent dust cover still on, as planned), and opened its solar panels. More...

NASA has announced that the landing site for the Mars 2020 Rover will be Jezero Crater, a geologically diverse terrain holding remains of an ancient lake bed and river delta. More...

This Day in Planetary and Lunar Exploration History

1966: An elaborate funeral is held in Red Square for Sergei Korolev, leader of the Soviet space effort.
2000: Tagish Lake fireball/meteorite streaks across the western Canadian sky and explodes over the Yukon.