Artemis III Crew Announced, Solar Overtakes Coal, and More Science News

NASA this week announced the four-person crew that will lead its Artemis III mission in 2027: NASA astronauts Andre Douglas, Frank Rubio and Randy Bresnik along with ESA's Luca Parmitano as the flight's pilot. Plus, the Parker Solar Probe took another trip around the sun, solar energy overtook coal in May, and more. Here's this week's science news.

Parker Solar Probe's 28th flyby

NASA's Parker Solar Probe made another close pass around the sun this week, getting 3.8 million miles from the surface and reaching a speed of 430,000 mph. This marked its 28th flyby, and matched the speed and distance records the probe first set back in December 2024. It's hit those numbers five times since. The spacecraft began its latest approach on June 3, and transmitted a beacon tone on Thursday to signal to the team that all is well.

The Parker Solar Probe has been studying our star for eight years, incrementally getting closer and closer to the surface. It launched in 2018 and made its first close approach to the sun that fall, when it came within 15 million miles of the sun's surface. For its first flyby, it reached a maximum speed of 213,200 mph. Despite the harsh conditions in the sun's vicinity — the heat shield reaches an estimated 1,700 degrees F when the spacecraft is closest to the sun — the Parker team says the probe still appears to be doing well after all this time. Below the heat shield, the Parker probe is protected by thermal blankets which have kept the temperature of the spacecraft itself consistent during these flybys.

"That temperature consistency is a major indicator of spacecraft health," said John Wirzburger, Parker Solar Probe mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. "It tells us the heat shield isn't degrading. If it were cracking or weakening, we'd see temperatures drift upward as more heat leaked through."

Parker is observing solar wind and activity, keeping track of the changes that occur across the sun's 11-year cycle. The space probe arrived at the sun near the quieter period known as solar minimum, and has been there long enough to see it reach solar maximum, which was confirmed in 2024. This is when solar activity peaks, giving rise to an increase in sunspots and events like solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Solar activity will soon begin to gradually decline as it moves through the next phase. The Parker probe has had a front row seat for all of this, gathering unprecedented data that will help us better understand our star and its effects on space weather.

Solar overtakes coal in the US for the first time

According to a report from the energy think tank Ember, May 2026 marked the first month on record in which solar accounted for more electricity generation than coal in the United States. Despite the Trump administration's push to revive the coal industry, "Solar supplied a record 12.8 percent of US electricity, while coal fell to 12.2 percent, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever," according to Ember. The total output from solar last month was a record 45.5TWh, making it the third-largest source of electricity in the country, Ember reports.

Coal was only slightly behind it at 43.4TWh in May, but this marked an 11 percent drop compared to the same time last year. And in April, it dipped to its lowest-ever monthly total on record, at 39.3TWh. "The share of coal generation in the US mix has nearly halved in the last five years, falling from 19.7 percent in May 2021 to 12.2 percent in May 2026," according to Ember. "In contrast, solar power's share of the mix more than doubled from 5.4 percent to 12.8 percent over the same period."

Solar still fell behind gas and nuclear, but analysts at Ember say clean power is still ticking upward even as policy shifts in the other direction. In March, according to Ember, "renewables collectively generated more electricity than gas for the first time in the US."

Enjoy this timelapse of the southern lights seen from space

Earlier this week, an astronaut on the International Space Station shared a breathtaking timelapse video of aurora australis (the southern lights). Jessica Meir, who is the spacecraft commander for NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission, captured the footage from a Dragon spacecraft docked to the ISS. "As opposed to the previous aurora I've seen, this one danced and snaked its way directly below us, putting on quite a show," Meir wrote on social media. "I am in awe of this y [sic] evocative phenomenon."

Astronauts may have some of the best views of auroras, but viewers down on the ground have been getting a pretty good show as of late, too. The NOAA's National Space Weather Prediction Center last week issued G2 and G3 geomagnetic storm watches, giving enthusiasts a heads up that auroras may be visible in more regions than normal. In the Northern Hemisphere, auroras were predicted to be visible across Canada and the northern US, while viewers in Australia and New Zealand had a chance to catch the southern lights.

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