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On October 14th, 2024, NASA’s Europa Clipper mission began its long journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. On March 1st, the probe reached Mars, where it conducted a gravity-assist maneuver. While orbiting the Red Planet, mission controllers back on Earth took the opportunity to test the probe’s Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON). Once it reaches Europa, Clipper will use this radar instrument to probe beneath the moon’s icy sheet and search for pockets of water that could lie within.

The instrument could also give scientists a glimpse of Europa’s interior ocean, which could theoretically support life. The radar imagery REASON will provide could help verify this by shedding light on how material is transferred from the interior to the surface. The instrument will also study Europa’s ridges and other surface features so scientists can examine how they are connected to features beneath the surface. The test was a complete success, producing a radargram showing the outline of Mars’ topography and providing a taste of what the probe will see when it arrives at Europa.

REASON relies on two pairs of antennas that extend from the spacecraft’s massive solar arrays, measuring 17.6 meters (58 feet) from tip to tip. The flyby at Mars provided an opportunity to test the radar in ways that weren’t possible on Earth. Prior to launch, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (where the Europa Clipper was assembled) conducted a battery of tests, including a deployment test using engineering models using the open-air towers atop the plateau overlooking the facility. But once the actual hardware was built, it could only be tested in the High Bay 1 clean room at JPL to ensure that it remained sterile until launch.

But testing how the bounceback of the radar’s signals (aka. an “echo” test) of the radar was something that could only be performed in space. “We got everything out of the flyby that we dreamed,” said Don Blankenship, principal investigator of the radar instrument, in a NASA press release. “The goal was to determine the radar’s readiness for the Europa mission, and it worked. Every part of the instrument proved itself to do exactly what we intended.”

The test consisted of REASON sending and receiving radio waves for about 40 minutes while the spacecraft flew 5,000 km (3,100 mi) above Mars’ surface, gradually lowering itself to 884 km (550 mi). Once it arrives around Europa, REASON will operate when the Europa Clipper is as close as 25 km (16 mi) to the moon’s surface. The instrument team collected 60 gigabytes of rich data, which they began transmitting in mid-May. Since then, scientists have pored over the data in detail, which verified that REASON was in good working order. Said Trina Ray, Europa Clipper deputy science manager at NASA JPL:

The engineers were excited that their test worked so perfectly. All of us who had worked so hard to make this test happen — and the scientists seeing the data for the first time — were ecstatic, saying, ‘Oh, look at this! Oh, look at that!’ Now, the science team is getting a head start on learning how to process the data and understand the instrument’s behavior compared to models. They are exercising those muscles just like they will out at Europa.

Europa Clipper’s total journey to reach the icy moon will be about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) and includes one more gravity assist — using Earth — in 2026. The spacecraft is currently about 280 million miles (450 million kilometers) from Earth.

Further Reading: NASA

On a clear June day in Georgia, a blazing fireball suddenly fell out of the sky over the Atlanta metro area. The source of this spectacle was a 1-ton meteor that exploded in mid-air, sending a cherry tomato-sized fragment shooting through the roof of a McDonough home.

Though no one knew it then, this space rock hailed from a time long before Earth had even formed. Using optical and electron microscopes, geologists at the University of Georgia analyzed 0.8 ounces (23 grams) of fragments recovered from the piece that ripped through the house on June 26. Their study revealed that this meteor was likely over 4.56 billion years old. That’s 20 million years older than our planet.

“This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough, ​​and in order to totally understand that, we actually have to examine what the rock is and determine what group of asteroids it belongs to,” Scott Harris, a University of Georgia geology researcher, said in a release.

Harris and his colleagues extrapolated the meteor’s age by classifying the recovered fragments. The composition of the debris indicated it came from a low-metal ordinary chondrite, a group of asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. Experts believe they stem from a breakup of a much larger asteroid that occurred about 470 million years ago, Harris explained. As these meteors orbit the Sun, they occasionally cross through Earth’s orbit, he said.

That’s what allowed this interloper to pierce through Earth’s atmosphere and ultimately an unsuspecting Georgian’s home. According to the UGA release, researchers clocked the meteor entering the atmosphere at cosmic velocity, which is faster than the speed of sound. Indeed, people widely reported sonic booms along the ground track of the fireball, which traveled from northeast to southwest to the site of its crash landing, NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office states.

The 3-foot-wide (1-meter-wide) meteor disintegrated—or blew up—27 miles above Wake Forest, Georgia, unleashing a blast of energy equivalent to roughly 20 tons of TNT, according to NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network. When a pebble-sized fragment punched through a McDonough man’s roof, Harris suspects he heard three things at once.

“One was the collision with his roof, one was a tiny cone of a sonic boom, and a third was it impacting the floor all in the same moment,” he said. “There was enough energy when it hit the floor that it pulverized part of the material down to literal dust fragments. The resident told Harris he’s still finding space dust around his living room, according to the release.

The cherry tomato-sized meteorite, officially named the McDonough meteorite, is the 27th recovered in Georgia in history and only the sixth documented fall. “This is something that used to be expected once every few decades and not multiple times within 20 years,” Harris said. “Modern technology in addition to an attentive public is going to help us recover more and more meteorites.”

The McDonough meteorite will remain at UGA for further analysis, and Harris plans to publish a paper on its composition, speed, and dynamics. These details will help scientists understand the potential threat of larger and more dangerous asteroid impacts. “One day there will be an opportunity, and we never know when it’s going to be, for something large to hit and create a catastrophic situation. If we can guard against that, we want to,” Harris said.

Key Facts

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Where Will The Northern Lights Be Visible?

Monday’s viewing line includes Alaska, northern Washington, northern Idaho, most of Montana, all of North Dakota, the upper half of South Dakota, most of Minnesota, the Michigan Upper Peninsula, the northern half of the Michigan Lower Peninsula and northern Maine.

What’s The Best Way To See The Northern Lights?

The window of time between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. usually provides viewers with their best chance at seeing the northern lights. Areas with little to no light pollution, as well as high vantage points, can increase the likelihood of seeing the aurora borealis.

What’s The Best Way To Photograph The Northern Lights?

Night mode and no flash should be used for those trying to snap a photo of the lights on their smartphones. Traditional cameras should be equipped with wide-angle lenses and low apertures while shooting the northern lights. Tripods can help smartphones and cameras with stability.

Key Background

Auroral activity has been above-average through much of 2024 and 2025. The increased activity comes from the sun reaching the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, generating coronal mass ejections and solar flares that often lead to northern lights showings. While the summer has brought some decent showings, winter months are typically the best time to view the northern lights due to longer and darker nights.