Expeditions and discoveries on land, at sea and in the deep ocean.
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer departed Honolulu on November 2 to begin a two-week demonstration testing HUGIN 6000 and Orpheus autonomous underwater vehicles in routine deep-sea operations.
Astronauts Anil Menon and Joshua Kutryk turned a milestone EVA into the seventh of eight roll-out solar array deployments, putting the station within one installation of a 30 percent power boost.
NASA's Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out a restructured Artemis timeline on October 23, with a 2027 low-Earth-orbit test and a 2028 crewed lunar landing. The one decision deliberately left open is which company's lander actually touches the surface.
ESA's dark-universe observatory spotted comet C/2026 S1 arching high over the Solar System between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.
The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission has launched, beginning a multi-year effort to study Phobos and bring the first samples back to Earth.
A 17-person Taraia Object expedition team arrived at the remote Phoenix Islands atoll this week to investigate what could be the remains of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra.
A 17-person expedition is beginning its search for a submerged object that could be Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra, though experienced investigators believe it is a fallen pandanus tree.
Ocean Exploration Trust and partners have launched the final 2026 voyage of E/V Nautilus, mapping and diving on unmapped seamounts at the eastern edge of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument with a ten-person Hawaiian science team aboard.
The Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station marks the first time a NASA astronaut has flown twice on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
The Ocean Exploration Trust's research vessel has embarked on a 20-day mission to map never-before-seen ridges and seamounts in the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary.
The Ocean Exploration Trust’s E/V Nautilus has begun a 20-day expedition to map previously unmapped deep-sea habitats around Hawaiʻi and within Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary.
An ROV expedition to the previously unvisited Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon off Argentina documented roughly 40 species new to science alongside 29 pieces of human-made litter, including an instant noodle package nearly 2,000 metres down.
Scientists have rediscovered a thriving coral reef ecosystem off the coast of Benin, West Africa, previously believed to have been dead for over 60 years.
After an eight-year voyage, the BepiColombo mission has entered its arrival phase at Mercury.
The Tara Polar Station has successfully locked into Arctic ice for a year-long research expedition, aided by the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long 2.
A July 2026 survey led by Trinidad and Tobago's own scientists aboard a Schmidt Ocean Institute vessel mapped 13% of the nation's uncharted seafloor and identified two dozen sites of significant biological activity.
A July 2026 expedition aboard R/V Falkor (too), led by Trinbagonian scientists, completed the first locally run comprehensive deep-sea survey of Trinidad and Tobago, mapping 13% of uncharted seafloor and finding 25 cold seeps with dozens of potentially new species.
NOAA has deployed two consecutive deep-sea expeditions aboard the Okeanos Explorer around American Samoa to map polymetallic nodule fields and deepwater habitats in the nation's highest-priority region for offshore critical-mineral mapping.
NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer completed a 26-day deep-sea expedition in Cook Islands waters in August 2026, recovering 23 potential new species and confirming extensive polymetallic nodule fields.
Two weeks ago, the European Commission issued two legally binding decisions under the Digital Markets Act, ordering Google to share anonymized search data with rivals starting January 2027 and to open 11 Android features to competing AI assistants by July 2027. Google pushed back, executives arguing the mandates risk user privacy and security, while the Commission cited repeated failure to self-comply. The rulings aim to level an AI playing field dominated by Google’s data and platform advantages.
Japan's JAXA unveiled the MMX spacecraft on August 13, 2026, targeting a world-first sample return from the Martian moon Phobos. The probe, the largest lunar or planetary spacecraft Japan has built, is scheduled to launch this autumn on an H3 rocket and return to Earth five years later.
Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland calved a 76.4 km² ice island on August 4, 2026, its largest floating-ice loss since 2012, while satellite data reveals two more massive islands are likely to detach soon as the glacier's floating tongue continues to fracture.