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Beginning on the near side of the Moon, with the Apollo sites marked, the view quickly moves to the South Pole and zooms in to show the changing illumination conditions there for an entire year. The Apollo program landed six pairs of astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. All six landing sites are at low latitudes, near the equator. In this visualization, the Apollo sites are contrasted with the South Pole, an area with enormous potential for future exploration. Time passes as we zoom toward Shackleton crater at the South Pole, revealing illumination conditions quite different from those near the equator. While many craters remain in permanent shadow, some nearby mountains and ridges are in persistent sunshine, making them attractive candidates for solar power and long-term habitation.

The phase and libration of the Moon for 2022, at hourly intervals. Includes supplemental graphics that display the Moon's orbit, subsolar and sub-Earth points, and the Moon's distance from Earth at true scale. Craters near the terminator are labeled, as are Apollo landing sites and maria and other albedo features in sunlight.

On September 25, 2135, an asteroid called Bennu will make a close flyby of Earth. Our planet’s gravity will tweak Bennu’s path, making it a challenge to calculate its future trajectory. During the flyby, there is an extremely small chance that Bennu will pass through a “gravitational keyhole” – a region of space that would set it on just the right path to impact Earth, late in the 22nd century. Although it is difficult to determine the odds of this actually happening, new data from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft have allowed scientists to better model how Bennu’s orbit will evolve over time, and to better calculate the probability of an impact. Now, a new paper from the OSIRIS-REx science team gives Bennu a 1:2700 (0.037%) chance of impacting Earth on September 24, 2182.

NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, will make a daring attempt to “TAG” asteroid Bennu on Oct. 20 – touch its surface and collect a sample for return to Earth. Sample site Nightingale, the mission’s targeted touch down spot, is only a few parking spaces wide and surrounded by building-sized boulders that pose a hazard to OSIRIS-REx. The spacecraft will carefully navigate down to the sample site with its sampling arm extended and touch Bennu’s surface for several seconds. Upon contact, the collector head will fire a bottle of nitrogen gas to agitate loose material, which is then caught in the spacecraft’s collector head. After this brief touch, OSIRIS-REx will fire its thrusters to back away from Bennu, navigating to a safe distance from the asteroid. The spacecraft will depart Bennu in 2021 and deliver the sample to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023.