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If humans return to the Moon, they will need good maps. Luckily, one plucky little spacecraft has been making them. For the past seven years, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been painstakingly photographing almost all of the Moon’s surface. But the mission has not always gone to plan.

If you’ve ever dreamed of living on Mars, you’ve probably realised you’ll need a place to live. That’s one reason to be excited about Martian brick research being conducted by scientists in the United States. Recently, a team showed that it’s actually quite easy to make bricks out of Mars dirt.

Iceland is a remote and beautiful island, brimming with volcanoes. Volcanic eruptions give the Earth an almighty shake, so it’s no surprise that Iceland has lots of earthquake measuring seismometers. But you might be surprised to find out what these instruments are picking up.

Is there life on other planets? It may seem like we’re alone in the universe, but there’s still hope. The race is on to find signs of life on Earth-like planets, which have atmospheres and liquid water on the surface.

You might think we know everything there is to know about climate change. We know that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are trapping heat. And we know that average temperatures are climbing worldwide. But there’s still lots for us to learn, and new discoveries are being made all the time.

Voyager, Pathfinder, Cassini. Humanity has sent out dozens of plucky little space probes to explore our solar system. But when these robots need to call home, who’s listening in?

It’s been a wild ride through space for the Philae lander. Two years ago, Philae hitched a ride aboard the European Space Agency spacecraft Rosetta. Together they took a one-way trip to a comet known as 67P. This little lander became the first spacecraft to touchdown on a comet.

In some ways, Venus is Earth’s twin – it’s the closest planet to Earth, and it’s almost exactly the same size. But poor Venus flies too close to the Sun. Brighter sunlight and a runaway greenhouse effect makes Venus unbearably hot, with temperatures averaging more than 450 degrees Celsius.

It’s a science fiction horror story – a young astronaut takes a year-long mission closely orbiting a black hole. When he returns home, thousands of years have passed and everyone he has ever known has been dead for centuries. Is there a hint of truth to this terrifying tale?

On 2 March this year, two long-term International Space Station residents returned to Earth. Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko both spent 342 days in space. Their year-long mission included space walks and Earth photography. But the most important experiment was on themselves. How does a person react to a year in space?