A common misconception in astronomy is that part of the Moon remains continuously shadowed, popularized by legendary rock band Pink Floyd’s 1973 album, “Dark Side of the Moon.” Watching the Moon change phases confirms that, in fact, there is no dark side – all sides see the Sun at different times during the month. Yet, a peculiar feature of the lunar orbit produces shadows in craters at its poles, which have remained in darkness for billions of years. So, there really is a dark side of the Moon! What surprises lurk within the Moon’s perpetual shadows? Recent observations from orbiting spacecraft such as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Indian Chandrayaan-1 mission have revealed the presence of vast ice deposits, which may provide rocket fuel and drinking water for astronauts on future deep space missions. Scientific interest in these ice deposits is also high: they may record a billion-year history of comet impacts, solar wind, and perhaps even a short-lived lunar atmosphere produced by volcanic eruptions. In this LASP public lecture from October 3, 2018, Dr. Paul Hayne takes us on a journey to the coldest, darkest reaches of our Solar System—the Moon’s permanently shadowed craters. Here, we find remnants of the Moon’s violent past. Paul also discusses LASP’s involvement in NASA’s upcoming lunar exploration program, including the recently announced Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, and CubeSat missions such as Lunar Flashlight.

The moon is our closest celestial neighbor, but the Dark Side of the Moon is still one of the most mysterious places in the Solar System. In this video, Unveiled heads to the far side of the moon to find out what's hiding there... A lunar wasteland? Ancient Aliens? Or something else?

My battery is low, and its getting dark. This is the final message NASA scientists received from the opportunity rover on mars. Launched in the summer of 2003, along with its twin rover spirit, the missions were designed to last just 90 days. After surviving on Mars for almost 15 years, in 2018; Opportunity went silent. I have made this documentary using real NASA pictures taken by Opportunity, as well as some CGI clips for illustration purposes. Everything I use in my videos and audio is public domain. Credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech/University of Arizona

Drive along with the NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover and hear the voices of scientists and engineers behind the mission. Designed to run for 90 days, the exploration spanned more than 15 years from 2004 to 2019. Along the way, it discovered definitive proof of liquid water on ancient Mars and set the off-world driving record. For more information on the Mars Exploration Rovers and all of NASA’s Mars missions, visit mars.nasa.gov.

This is the Curiosity rover. Designed initially to explore the crater Gale on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, and landed inside Gale on Mars on August 6, 2012. The landing site of the car sized-rover was less than 1 ½” miles from its touchdown target after completing a 350 million mile journey. Its goal was to investigate Martian climate and geology and assess if environmental conditions were favorable for microbial life. It would also go on to conduct planetary habitability studies in preparation for human exploration of Mars. Curiosity's two-year mission was would be extended indefinitely and continues to send back images and data to this day. This is a visual tour of its mission. Image 2 - This mosaic taken at the rover’s landing site in the Gale Crater was created by using 27 images from its mast-mounted Left Navigation Camera. Image 3 - Looking at Curiosity's landing site in color reveals the gravelly area surface of the Gale Crater. The terrain falls off into a depression and beyond that is the boulder-strewn, red-brown rim of a moderately-sized impact crater. Farther off in the distance, there are dark dunes and then the layered rock at the base of Mount Sharp. Image 4 - This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager camera shows a small bright object on the ground beside the rover. The object is about half an inch long and the rover team believes this object to be debris from the spacecraft, possibly from the events of landing on Mars. Image 5 - This is the "Shaler" outcrop taken during the 120th day of Curiosity's mission. Its dramatically layering patterns suggested evidence of past streamflow in some locations. Image 6 - This is a view of the "John Klein" location selected for the first rock drilling by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity taken during the afternoon of the 153rd Martian day of Curiosity's mission. The veins giving rise to evidence of a wet past are common in the flat-lying rocks of the area. Image 7 - Called the "mini drill test," Curiosity used its drill to generate this ring of powdered rock for inspection in advance of the rover's first full drilling. Curiosity performed the mini drill test during the 180th Martian day of its mission. Image 8 - This is Mount Sharp, also known as Aeolis Mons, its a layered mound in the center of Mars' Gale Crater, rising more than 3 miles above the floor of the Gale crater. Lower slopes of Mount Sharp were a major destination for the mission where it searched evidence of a past environment favorable for microbial life. Image 9 - This the view of an outcrop called "Point Lake." The outcrop is about 20 inches high and pockmarked with holes. Curiosity recorded the 20 component images for this mosaic on the mission's 302nd Martian day. Image 10 - This scene combines seven images from the telephoto-lens camera onboard Curiosity. The images were taken on the 343rd Martian day of the mission. The rover had driven 205 feet the day before to arrive at the location providing this vista. The center of the scene is toward the southwest. A rise topped by two gray rocks near the center of the scene is informally named "Twin Cairns Island." Image 11 - This mosaic of images are from geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation, and the sites where Curiosity drilled into the lowest-lying member, called Sheepbed, at targets "John Klein" and "Cumberland." The scene has the Sheepbed mudstone in the foreground and rises up through Gillespie Lake member to the Point Lake outcrop. These rocks record superimposed ancient lake and stream deposits that offered past environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. Rocks here were exposed about 70 million years ago by removal of overlying layers due to erosion by the wind. Image 12 - This scene combines images taken during the midafternoon of the mission's 526th Martian day. The sand dune in the upper center of the image spans a gap, called "Dingo Gap," between two short scarps. Image 13 - This look back at a dune that the Curiosity drove across was taken during the 538th Martian day. The rover had driven over the dune three days earlier. Image 14 - The scene combines multiple images taken with both cameras of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Curiosity during its 1,087th Martian day. Taken at the lower slope of Mount Sharp and Spanning from the east, to the southwest it shows Large-scale crossbedding in the sandstone. This is a feature common in petrified sand dunes even on earth. Image 15 - Curiosity recorded this view of the sun setting at the close of the mission's 956th Martian day. This was the first sunset from the martian surfaced, observed in color by Curiosity.

The Hubble Telescope enables us to look towards very distant objects in the universe. Thanks to this remarkable piece of engineering NASA has been able to create some incredible images, one of which is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Created using images from the telescope from 2003 and 2004, the incredible picture displays a tiny patch of the sky in immense detail; it contains 10,000 objects, most of them young galaxies, and acts as a portal back in time. In one picture we are transported 13 billion years into the past, just 400 to 800 million years after the Big Bang, which is early in terms of the universe’s history.

A supernova is the explosion of a star. It is the largest explosion that takes place in space. Where Do Supernovas Take Place? Supernovas are often seen in other galaxies. But supernovas are difficult to see in our own Milky Way galaxy because dust blocks our view. In 1604, Johannes Kepler discovered the last observed supernova in the Milky Way. NASA’s Chandra telescope discovered the remains of a more recent supernova. It exploded in the Milky Way more than a hundred years ago. What Causes a Supernova? A supernova happens where there is a change in the core, or center, of a star. A change can occur in two different ways, with both resulting in a supernova. The first type of supernova happens in binary star systems. Binary stars are two stars that orbit the same point. One of the stars, a carbon-oxygen white dwarf, steals matter from its companion star. Eventually, the white dwarf accumulates too much matter. Having too much matter causes the star to explode, resulting in a supernova. The second type of supernova occurs at the end of a single star’s lifetime. As the star runs out of nuclear fuel, some of its mass flows into its core. Eventually, the core is so heavy that it cannot withstand its own gravitational force. The core collapses, which results in the giant explosion of a supernova. The sun is a single star, but it does not have enough mass to become a supernova.