Want to know the rising and setting times for the sun, moon and planets in your sky? Here are some resources for you. We can’t answer every inquiry individually, but we can direct you to some wonderful almanacs that provide this information.
Rising and setting times are for locations with a level horizon.
Custom Sunrise Sunset Calendar
This site provides a printable monthly calendar that gives you the sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times, and the phases of the moon. Optional features include times for civil, nautical and astronomical twilight, and the definitions for these different shades of twilight.
Old Farmer’s Almanac
Calculate rise and set times for the sun, moon and planets (including the dwarf planet Pluto!) for any location in the U.S. and Canada.
timeanddate.com planet guide
Gives the rising and setting times for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune for any chosen location.
Australian National University
Gives rise/transit/set times for the sun, moon and bright planets for anyplace worldwide. You need to know your latitude and longitude. Try latlong.net to find that.
Heavens-Above
Information on when the International Space Station and other satellites are visible in your sky.
A photo from our EarthSky community
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Jose Zarcos Palma captured this image on July 28. 2025, from Portugal. Jose wrote: “During nautical twilight, the two space stations – ISS and TIANGONG – cross the same region of the sky just a few minutes apart. On the right side of the image, we can also see the moon’s trail, with an illumination of about 18%. The apparent motion of the stars and the moon correspond to the period between the beginning of the ISS’s ascent and the end of Tiangong’s visibility (~24 minutes).” Thank you, Jose!
Bottom line: Find out rising and setting times for the sun, the moon, planets, and satellites at the almanac sites linked here.
Want to know the rising and setting times for the sun, moon and planets in your sky? Here are some resources for you. We can’t answer every inquiry individually, but we can direct you to some wonderful almanacs that provide this information.
Rising and setting times are for locations with a level horizon.
Custom Sunrise Sunset Calendar
This site provides a printable monthly calendar that gives you the sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times, and the phases of the moon. Optional features include times for civil, nautical and astronomical twilight, and the definitions for these different shades of twilight.
Old Farmer’s Almanac
Calculate rise and set times for the sun, moon and planets (including the dwarf planet Pluto!) for any location in the U.S. and Canada.
timeanddate.com planet guide
Gives the rising and setting times for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune for any chosen location.
Australian National University
Gives rise/transit/set times for the sun, moon and bright planets for anyplace worldwide. You need to know your latitude and longitude. Try latlong.net to find that.
Heavens-Above
Information on when the International Space Station and other satellites are visible in your sky.
A photo from our EarthSky community
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Jose Zarcos Palma captured this image on July 28. 2025, from Portugal. Jose wrote: “During nautical twilight, the two space stations – ISS and TIANGONG – cross the same region of the sky just a few minutes apart. On the right side of the image, we can also see the moon’s trail, with an illumination of about 18%. The apparent motion of the stars and the moon correspond to the period between the beginning of the ISS’s ascent and the end of Tiangong’s visibility (~24 minutes).” Thank you, Jose!
Bottom line: Find out rising and setting times for the sun, the moon, planets, and satellites at the almanac sites linked here.
This satellite imagery in October 2024 showed Hurricane Milton resembling a creepy skull as it approached Florida. Seeing things, such as faces, in random objects is a phenomenon known as pareidolia. Image via Max Velocity.
Maybe you’ve seen a fluffy bunny in the clouds on a warm summer day, or a face staring back at you from the bark of a tree. Seeing familiar shapes in otherwise random objects is called pareidolia. And now, new research is helping to explain why. On April 7, 2026, researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said that the images our brains tend to perceive are strongly biased toward angry male faces.
Lindsay Peterson of UNSW led the new study. Peterson explained that our tendency to see angry male faces might be due to an instinct to protect ourselves. Peterson said:
Your lizard brain is telling you that the safest thing is to assume it’s a threat and then deal with it.
The researchers published their study in the peer-reviewed journal Royal Society Open Science on March 25, 2026.
A look at the research
The new study consisted of two experiments with 70 participants. As participants looked at images, the researchers asked them to identify faces and assign traits such as age, gender and emotion. Some of the objects were real items, such as a purse. And in other cases the images were just abstract visual “noise.” Overall, there was a wide range of things people saw in the noise images. Peterson said:
Buddha, angels, demons, dragons. It’s amazing you can have these quite rich responses to a stimulus that is essentially noise. It is quite remarkable [what we see] given that in the noise stimulus, it is just noise. There really isn’t anything there.
Despite the variety of things people reported seeing, there were detectable patterns as well. Notably, there was a bias toward people seeing male faces with expressions of anger. Peterson said previous research has shown:
The male bias exists across generations and in children as young as four years old, which suggests that it’s hard wired.
From an evolutionary perspective, pareidolia is a useful feature. It’s better to mistakenly see a face – or a potential threat – than to miss one entirely. And this bias toward detection helps explain why we’re especially sensitive to facelike patterns.
The trade-off? We occasionally see meaning in randomness.
Clouds become dragons. Shadows become figures. Hurricanes look like skulls.
An example of a visual noise image the UNSW researchers showed to participants. The red lines represent some of the faces participants saw within the noise. Image via UNSW.
Pareidolia in astronomy
Seeing the famous man in the moon or the canals on Mars are classic examples from astronomy. The ability to experience pareidolia is more developed in some people and less in others. Look at the photos below to learn more and test your own ability to see things that aren’t there.
Seeing things on other planets? Here’s an example of pareidolia in an early mystery of the space age. It’s the so-called face on Mars. The Viking 1 orbiter originally captured this image in 1976. NASA shows how subsequent spacecraft revealed the “face” to be a play of light and shadows. Image via Wikimedia Commons/ NASA.View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Peter Lowenstein in Mutare, Zimbabwe, captured these images on April 16, 2020. He wrote: “… the sunset was accompanied by the appearance of some pareidolic cumulus clouds which appeared to encroach on and devour the setting sun!” Read more about these images or see them as a video. Thank you, Peter!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Helio C. Vital of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, wrote: “A friend of mine, Professor Eliane Teixeira Mársico, who is a veterinarian and a food engineer, was taking photos of her yard when she saw a hummingbird. She noticed a remarkable example of pareidolia (seeing things). The image greatly resembles a little winged male figure (a male fairy, as mystics could say) floating over her home garden.” Thank you, Eliane and Helio! Image by Eliane Teixeira Mársico.
Pareidolia is making sense out of what you think you see
Can you see a bird in flight in this photo? It’s a photo of the aurora borealis taken near Fairbanks, Alaska, by Dave Bachrach. Used with permission.Erwan Mirabeau shot this rock formation in Ebihens, France. It’s reminiscent of a green-haired man, known in the area as an Apache. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.The “face of Jesus” in this photo is actually a child with a bonnet, and the hair is vegetation in the background. Anonymous Swedish photograph from the late nineteenth century via Wikimedia Commons.
Seeing things varies by individuals
Sometimes the ability to see objects in photos, where no such objects exist, has results that are not simply beautiful or intriguing, but downright bizarre. For example, consider the old photo above from an anonymous Swedish photographer of the 19th century.
In the image above, many viewers will immediately see the image of a bearded man with wavy hair, which could resemble Jesus, near the left center of the image. In fact, however, the face is just a phenomenon of light, shadow and placement. The “face of Jesus” is actually a child with a bonnet, and the hair is vegetation in the background.
You have also probably have seen claims of images of Jesus in a piece of toast, or the Madonna in the misshapen form of a gourd. And although intrinsically meaningless, such images are sometimes striking. More often, though, the similarity to known persons, animals or objects is a bit more subtle.
Ty Lawrence in Las Vegas, Nevada, contributed this photo. We posted it at EarthSky Facebook and asked people what it looked like to them. We got many answers. Puppy. Dragon. Dog. Map of the Mediterranean Sea. But most people said “bird.” Thanks, Ty!
Did pareidolia lead to creating the constellations?
To a certain extent, the definition of pareidolia can explain why the ancients connected the dots and came up with the patterns we know as constellations. Indeed, it does not take a great deal of imagination to see a lion in Leo, a scorpion in Scorpius or a mighty hunter in Orion. To be honest, many other constellations, such as Cancer the Crab or Capricornus the Sea Goat, stretch the pattern recognition idea a bit far, making the naming process more one of contrivance than of pareidolia.
What about the face on Mars?
Staying in the realm of astronomy for a bit, many have seen a face or a rabbit in the moon or any of a variety of other figures on the face of the moon for ages. And nowadays, technology has given us close-ups of other planets that serve as fodder for the pareidolia monster.
Glass tunnels or “ice worms” on Mars? In fact, these Martian canyons contain crescent-shaped sand dunes, which form when the wind is predominantly from one direction. Image via NASA.
For example, some self-appointed experts have stated that the image above – which is an enlargement of a small section of image M0400291 from the Mars Global Surveyor – shows large glass tunnels on Mars, or even evidence for ice worms on the red planet. But what the image above really shows is a convergence of deep canyons on the planet Mars. At the bottom of these canyons are crescent-shaped sand dunes, which form when the wind is predominantly from one direction. Such dunes are common in desert areas of the Earth and are known as barchans.
View full image. | On September 27, 2024, the Perseverance rover found a new face on Mars. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ ASU.
Our own interests and experiences play a part in seeing things
In some ways, the pareidolic images we discover tend to indicate things about which we are most interested, whether they be people, puppies or planes. To be sure, finding such “embedded” images can be fun and interesting, almost a hobby for some. But for some they can also fuel obsessiveness and paranoia. Enjoy finding your own pareidolic images, but keep in mind that what you are seeing is not really there, but in your mind.
Bottom line: Seeing things such as a creepy face in satellite imagery is called pareidolia. Now, a new study says we’re more likely to see angry men in random objects.
This satellite imagery in October 2024 showed Hurricane Milton resembling a creepy skull as it approached Florida. Seeing things, such as faces, in random objects is a phenomenon known as pareidolia. Image via Max Velocity.
Maybe you’ve seen a fluffy bunny in the clouds on a warm summer day, or a face staring back at you from the bark of a tree. Seeing familiar shapes in otherwise random objects is called pareidolia. And now, new research is helping to explain why. On April 7, 2026, researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said that the images our brains tend to perceive are strongly biased toward angry male faces.
Lindsay Peterson of UNSW led the new study. Peterson explained that our tendency to see angry male faces might be due to an instinct to protect ourselves. Peterson said:
Your lizard brain is telling you that the safest thing is to assume it’s a threat and then deal with it.
The researchers published their study in the peer-reviewed journal Royal Society Open Science on March 25, 2026.
A look at the research
The new study consisted of two experiments with 70 participants. As participants looked at images, the researchers asked them to identify faces and assign traits such as age, gender and emotion. Some of the objects were real items, such as a purse. And in other cases the images were just abstract visual “noise.” Overall, there was a wide range of things people saw in the noise images. Peterson said:
Buddha, angels, demons, dragons. It’s amazing you can have these quite rich responses to a stimulus that is essentially noise. It is quite remarkable [what we see] given that in the noise stimulus, it is just noise. There really isn’t anything there.
Despite the variety of things people reported seeing, there were detectable patterns as well. Notably, there was a bias toward people seeing male faces with expressions of anger. Peterson said previous research has shown:
The male bias exists across generations and in children as young as four years old, which suggests that it’s hard wired.
From an evolutionary perspective, pareidolia is a useful feature. It’s better to mistakenly see a face – or a potential threat – than to miss one entirely. And this bias toward detection helps explain why we’re especially sensitive to facelike patterns.
The trade-off? We occasionally see meaning in randomness.
Clouds become dragons. Shadows become figures. Hurricanes look like skulls.
An example of a visual noise image the UNSW researchers showed to participants. The red lines represent some of the faces participants saw within the noise. Image via UNSW.
Pareidolia in astronomy
Seeing the famous man in the moon or the canals on Mars are classic examples from astronomy. The ability to experience pareidolia is more developed in some people and less in others. Look at the photos below to learn more and test your own ability to see things that aren’t there.
Seeing things on other planets? Here’s an example of pareidolia in an early mystery of the space age. It’s the so-called face on Mars. The Viking 1 orbiter originally captured this image in 1976. NASA shows how subsequent spacecraft revealed the “face” to be a play of light and shadows. Image via Wikimedia Commons/ NASA.View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Peter Lowenstein in Mutare, Zimbabwe, captured these images on April 16, 2020. He wrote: “… the sunset was accompanied by the appearance of some pareidolic cumulus clouds which appeared to encroach on and devour the setting sun!” Read more about these images or see them as a video. Thank you, Peter!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Helio C. Vital of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, wrote: “A friend of mine, Professor Eliane Teixeira Mársico, who is a veterinarian and a food engineer, was taking photos of her yard when she saw a hummingbird. She noticed a remarkable example of pareidolia (seeing things). The image greatly resembles a little winged male figure (a male fairy, as mystics could say) floating over her home garden.” Thank you, Eliane and Helio! Image by Eliane Teixeira Mársico.
Pareidolia is making sense out of what you think you see
Can you see a bird in flight in this photo? It’s a photo of the aurora borealis taken near Fairbanks, Alaska, by Dave Bachrach. Used with permission.Erwan Mirabeau shot this rock formation in Ebihens, France. It’s reminiscent of a green-haired man, known in the area as an Apache. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.The “face of Jesus” in this photo is actually a child with a bonnet, and the hair is vegetation in the background. Anonymous Swedish photograph from the late nineteenth century via Wikimedia Commons.
Seeing things varies by individuals
Sometimes the ability to see objects in photos, where no such objects exist, has results that are not simply beautiful or intriguing, but downright bizarre. For example, consider the old photo above from an anonymous Swedish photographer of the 19th century.
In the image above, many viewers will immediately see the image of a bearded man with wavy hair, which could resemble Jesus, near the left center of the image. In fact, however, the face is just a phenomenon of light, shadow and placement. The “face of Jesus” is actually a child with a bonnet, and the hair is vegetation in the background.
You have also probably have seen claims of images of Jesus in a piece of toast, or the Madonna in the misshapen form of a gourd. And although intrinsically meaningless, such images are sometimes striking. More often, though, the similarity to known persons, animals or objects is a bit more subtle.
Ty Lawrence in Las Vegas, Nevada, contributed this photo. We posted it at EarthSky Facebook and asked people what it looked like to them. We got many answers. Puppy. Dragon. Dog. Map of the Mediterranean Sea. But most people said “bird.” Thanks, Ty!
Did pareidolia lead to creating the constellations?
To a certain extent, the definition of pareidolia can explain why the ancients connected the dots and came up with the patterns we know as constellations. Indeed, it does not take a great deal of imagination to see a lion in Leo, a scorpion in Scorpius or a mighty hunter in Orion. To be honest, many other constellations, such as Cancer the Crab or Capricornus the Sea Goat, stretch the pattern recognition idea a bit far, making the naming process more one of contrivance than of pareidolia.
What about the face on Mars?
Staying in the realm of astronomy for a bit, many have seen a face or a rabbit in the moon or any of a variety of other figures on the face of the moon for ages. And nowadays, technology has given us close-ups of other planets that serve as fodder for the pareidolia monster.
Glass tunnels or “ice worms” on Mars? In fact, these Martian canyons contain crescent-shaped sand dunes, which form when the wind is predominantly from one direction. Image via NASA.
For example, some self-appointed experts have stated that the image above – which is an enlargement of a small section of image M0400291 from the Mars Global Surveyor – shows large glass tunnels on Mars, or even evidence for ice worms on the red planet. But what the image above really shows is a convergence of deep canyons on the planet Mars. At the bottom of these canyons are crescent-shaped sand dunes, which form when the wind is predominantly from one direction. Such dunes are common in desert areas of the Earth and are known as barchans.
View full image. | On September 27, 2024, the Perseverance rover found a new face on Mars. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ ASU.
Our own interests and experiences play a part in seeing things
In some ways, the pareidolic images we discover tend to indicate things about which we are most interested, whether they be people, puppies or planes. To be sure, finding such “embedded” images can be fun and interesting, almost a hobby for some. But for some they can also fuel obsessiveness and paranoia. Enjoy finding your own pareidolic images, but keep in mind that what you are seeing is not really there, but in your mind.
Bottom line: Seeing things such as a creepy face in satellite imagery is called pareidolia. Now, a new study says we’re more likely to see angry men in random objects.
View larger. | On February 14, 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft – most distant spacecraft from Earth – pointed its cameras back toward the sun and captured a series of images of our sun and its planets. Incredibly, it was the 1st-ever “portrait” of our solar system as seen from the outside. At that time, Voyager 1 was approximately 4 billion miles (6 billion km) away. Read more about this image.
What’s Earth’s most distant spacecraft?
The most distant artificial object is the spacecraft Voyager 1. Which – in April 2026 – is more than 15 billion miles (24 billion km) from Earth. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Both spacecraft flew by Jupiter and Saturn. And Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus and Neptune. Now, both Voyagers are journeying into the space between the stars. Voyager 1 officially became the first earthly craft to leave the solar system, crossing the heliopause in 2012. Later, in 2021, it sent back a message that it’s hearing a faint, monotone hum of interstellar space.
Voyager 1 is expected to reach 1-light-day from Earth in November 2026. That’s 16.1 billion miles (25.9 billion km). You can track Voyager 1’s location and distance here.
And curiously, for a few months every year, the Voyager spacecraft actually get closer to Earth. That’s because in Earth’s orbit around the sun, we move away from the spacecraft (as they move away from us). Then, we move back toward them as we swing around the sun. So the distance between us and the Voyagers gets smaller temporarily. You can read more about it here: Why are the Voyager spacecraft getting closer to Earth?
Voyagers’ beginnings
Both Voyager spacecraft were designed back in the early 1970s. They were, specifically, built to take advantage of a rare grouping of planets on a single side of the sun in our solar system. This grouping, which happens only every 176 years, lets the Voyagers slingshot from one planet to the next, via gravitational assists.
First, the Voyagers began acquiring images of Jupiter in January 1979. Voyager 1 completed its Jupiter encounter in early April of that year. Then, Voyager 2 picked up the baton in late April and its encounter continued into August. Overall, the two spacecraft took more than 33,000 pictures of Jupiter and its four major satellites.
And then the Voyagers went farther. When they were launched, no spacecraft had gone as far as Saturn, which is 10 times as far as Earth’s distance from the sun. Indeed, the four-year journey to Saturn was thus a major leap. The Voyagers arrived at Saturn nine months apart, in November 1980 and August 1981. Voyager 1 then began leaving the solar system, and Voyager 2 went on to an encounter with Uranus in January 1986 and with Neptune in August 1989.
In 2017, astronomers described using the Hubble Space Telescope to look along the Voyagers’ paths. Later, in about 40,000 years, long after both spacecraft are no longer operational, Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445, in the constellation Camelopardalis. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 will pass 1.7 light-years from the star Ross 248 in the constellation Andromeda in about 40,000 years.
Artist’s concept of the paths of the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft on their journey through our solar system and out into interstellar space. Image via NASA/ ESA/ and Z. Levay (STScI). Read more about this image.
Bottom line: Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, launched 16 days apart in 1977. Voyager 1 is now the most distant spacecraft from Earth.
View larger. | On February 14, 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft – most distant spacecraft from Earth – pointed its cameras back toward the sun and captured a series of images of our sun and its planets. Incredibly, it was the 1st-ever “portrait” of our solar system as seen from the outside. At that time, Voyager 1 was approximately 4 billion miles (6 billion km) away. Read more about this image.
What’s Earth’s most distant spacecraft?
The most distant artificial object is the spacecraft Voyager 1. Which – in April 2026 – is more than 15 billion miles (24 billion km) from Earth. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Both spacecraft flew by Jupiter and Saturn. And Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus and Neptune. Now, both Voyagers are journeying into the space between the stars. Voyager 1 officially became the first earthly craft to leave the solar system, crossing the heliopause in 2012. Later, in 2021, it sent back a message that it’s hearing a faint, monotone hum of interstellar space.
Voyager 1 is expected to reach 1-light-day from Earth in November 2026. That’s 16.1 billion miles (25.9 billion km). You can track Voyager 1’s location and distance here.
And curiously, for a few months every year, the Voyager spacecraft actually get closer to Earth. That’s because in Earth’s orbit around the sun, we move away from the spacecraft (as they move away from us). Then, we move back toward them as we swing around the sun. So the distance between us and the Voyagers gets smaller temporarily. You can read more about it here: Why are the Voyager spacecraft getting closer to Earth?
Voyagers’ beginnings
Both Voyager spacecraft were designed back in the early 1970s. They were, specifically, built to take advantage of a rare grouping of planets on a single side of the sun in our solar system. This grouping, which happens only every 176 years, lets the Voyagers slingshot from one planet to the next, via gravitational assists.
First, the Voyagers began acquiring images of Jupiter in January 1979. Voyager 1 completed its Jupiter encounter in early April of that year. Then, Voyager 2 picked up the baton in late April and its encounter continued into August. Overall, the two spacecraft took more than 33,000 pictures of Jupiter and its four major satellites.
And then the Voyagers went farther. When they were launched, no spacecraft had gone as far as Saturn, which is 10 times as far as Earth’s distance from the sun. Indeed, the four-year journey to Saturn was thus a major leap. The Voyagers arrived at Saturn nine months apart, in November 1980 and August 1981. Voyager 1 then began leaving the solar system, and Voyager 2 went on to an encounter with Uranus in January 1986 and with Neptune in August 1989.
In 2017, astronomers described using the Hubble Space Telescope to look along the Voyagers’ paths. Later, in about 40,000 years, long after both spacecraft are no longer operational, Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445, in the constellation Camelopardalis. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 will pass 1.7 light-years from the star Ross 248 in the constellation Andromeda in about 40,000 years.
Artist’s concept of the paths of the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft on their journey through our solar system and out into interstellar space. Image via NASA/ ESA/ and Z. Levay (STScI). Read more about this image.
Bottom line: Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, launched 16 days apart in 1977. Voyager 1 is now the most distant spacecraft from Earth.
Arc to Arcturus, and speed on to Spica. Scouts learn this phrase. Grandparents teach it to kids. It’s one of the first sky tools many learn to use in astronomy. It’s a handy way to identify stars and patterns in the sky.
This mnemonic – a memory trick or device – directs you to two stars that are bright enough to shine even through the light pollution of suburbs and small cities. In fact, Spica is a prime example of a 1st-magnitude star. This means that, according to a brightness scale first used by the early astronomers Hipparchus (c.190-c.120 BCE) and Ptolemy (c.100-c.170 CE), it is one of our sky’s brightest stars.
And the star Arcturus beams brighter yet. It’s shining one magnitude (2.5 times) more brightly than Spica.
Arc to Arcturus
On any evening this month, look for the asterism of the Big Dipper high in the northeastern sky. You can’t miss the distinctive arrangement of its seven bright stars. Some people see it as an old-fashioned water ladle or a long-handled dipping spoon. Notice it has two parts: a bowl and a handle. Extend the curve of the handle until you come to a bright orange star. That’s Arcturus! It shines at a magnitude of -0.04.
Arcturus is a giant star, located an estimated 36.7 light-years from Earth. It is the 4th brightest star in the night sky. And it’s the brightest star in the constellation Boötes the Herdsman. Its name derives from the Ancient Greek for “Guardian of the Bear” due to its proximity to Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Some sky watchers still refer to it as the Bear Guard.
Speed on to Spica
Once you’ve followed the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle to Arcturus, you’re on your way to your next target. Just extend that same curve and speed on to the bright, blue-white star Spica! It shines at +1.04 magnitude. It’s the 16th brightest star in the sky.
Spica is the brightest light in Virgo the Maiden, a large, rambling constellation. Spica’s name derives from the Latin word for “ear,” referring to an ear of wheat held by the maiden. Greek astronomers associated the star and its constellation with the goddess of the harvest, Demeter. It’s also been associated with Demeter’s daughter, Persephone.
Today we know Spica as a tight double star. The two stars are indistinguishable from a single point of light in ordinary telescopes. Spica’s dual nature was revealed only by analyzing its light with a spectroscope. That’s an instrument that splits light into its component colors. Separated by just less than 11 million miles (18 million km), Spica’s two stars orbit a common center of gravity in only four days. They’re collectively more than 2,000 times brighter than our sun, and are estimated to be 7.8 and 4 times larger!
Bottom line: If you only ever learn one star mnemonic, make it this one! Arc to Arcturus and speed on to Spica to identify two of the sky’s brightest stars.
Arc to Arcturus, and speed on to Spica. Scouts learn this phrase. Grandparents teach it to kids. It’s one of the first sky tools many learn to use in astronomy. It’s a handy way to identify stars and patterns in the sky.
This mnemonic – a memory trick or device – directs you to two stars that are bright enough to shine even through the light pollution of suburbs and small cities. In fact, Spica is a prime example of a 1st-magnitude star. This means that, according to a brightness scale first used by the early astronomers Hipparchus (c.190-c.120 BCE) and Ptolemy (c.100-c.170 CE), it is one of our sky’s brightest stars.
And the star Arcturus beams brighter yet. It’s shining one magnitude (2.5 times) more brightly than Spica.
Arc to Arcturus
On any evening this month, look for the asterism of the Big Dipper high in the northeastern sky. You can’t miss the distinctive arrangement of its seven bright stars. Some people see it as an old-fashioned water ladle or a long-handled dipping spoon. Notice it has two parts: a bowl and a handle. Extend the curve of the handle until you come to a bright orange star. That’s Arcturus! It shines at a magnitude of -0.04.
Arcturus is a giant star, located an estimated 36.7 light-years from Earth. It is the 4th brightest star in the night sky. And it’s the brightest star in the constellation Boötes the Herdsman. Its name derives from the Ancient Greek for “Guardian of the Bear” due to its proximity to Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Some sky watchers still refer to it as the Bear Guard.
Speed on to Spica
Once you’ve followed the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle to Arcturus, you’re on your way to your next target. Just extend that same curve and speed on to the bright, blue-white star Spica! It shines at +1.04 magnitude. It’s the 16th brightest star in the sky.
Spica is the brightest light in Virgo the Maiden, a large, rambling constellation. Spica’s name derives from the Latin word for “ear,” referring to an ear of wheat held by the maiden. Greek astronomers associated the star and its constellation with the goddess of the harvest, Demeter. It’s also been associated with Demeter’s daughter, Persephone.
Today we know Spica as a tight double star. The two stars are indistinguishable from a single point of light in ordinary telescopes. Spica’s dual nature was revealed only by analyzing its light with a spectroscope. That’s an instrument that splits light into its component colors. Separated by just less than 11 million miles (18 million km), Spica’s two stars orbit a common center of gravity in only four days. They’re collectively more than 2,000 times brighter than our sun, and are estimated to be 7.8 and 4 times larger!
Bottom line: If you only ever learn one star mnemonic, make it this one! Arc to Arcturus and speed on to Spica to identify two of the sky’s brightest stars.
View larger. | Scientists once spoke of possible rich deposits of water ice in the deep, permanently shadowed craters at the moon’s poles. But a new study suggests less ice in moon’s shadows than previously thought. In this map of the moon’s south pole, you see Shackleton Crater – about 12 miles or 19 km in diameter – in the center. And the south pole itself is approximately at 9 o’clock on its rim. The map was created from images from the LROC camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Image via NASA/ GSFC/ Arizona State University.
There are deposits of water ice at the moon’s poles. The ice is in dark, shadowed craters.
But there’s less ice than previous estimates had suggested, a new study shows.
Researchers used NASA’s ShadowCam instrument on the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, also known as Danuri, to peer into the deep dark moon shadows.
How much water-ice is there on the moon? That question is important for future exploration of the moon. For a time, scientists spoke of easily accessible and possibly abundant surface water-ice deposits near the moon’s poles. This would have been in permanently shadowed craters at the poles, which are the darkest, coldest regions of the moon. But now researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa have confirmed a 2023 study, suggesting significantly less ice at the moon’s poles than we thought. The moon’s poles still likely hold the moon’s largest reservoirs of ice. But recent studies suggest those deposits might be smaller and more patchy than earlier estimates indicated.
The researchers of the new study said in late March 2026 that ice in permanently shadowed moon craters exists only in low concentrations or small, isolated deposits. The researchers used data from NASA’s ShadowCam instrument on the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri.
The findings could have an impact on future human exploration of the moon. Astronauts will need water resources, especially for any future habitats on the moon’s surface. If there is less accessible water-ice, mission planners need to know now. Some water can be brought from Earth. But the more in-situ lunar water-ice, the better. Right now, the crew of Artemis 2 has looped around the moon and are now returning to Earth. They didn’t land on the surface, but – starting with Artemis 4 – they soon will.
View larger. | This image shows the view of a permanently shadowed region on the left. The map on the right shows how the nearby lunar surface scatters sunlight. The bright spot (blue arrow) is water ice. The scattered sunlight helps ShadowCam to see ice deposits in the dark shadows. Image via Li et al., 2026/ University of Hawaii at Manoa.
ShadowCam
ShadowCam provided the data to study the ice deposits. NASA-funded engineers led by a team at Arizona State University designed it specifically for this task. It can take images of details in the darkest moon shadows. It does this by capturing sunlight reflected off nearby crater walls.
Contrary to expectations, the researchers found no evidence of widespread water ice in the permanently shadowed regions at the moon’s poles. This was for concentrations above 20-30% by weight.
How about elsewhere on the moon? Previous studies had suggested more widespread lunar ice deposits. And it’s still possible some water-ice exists at mid-latitudes on the moon, but probably only in small, isolated pockets. What’s more, this “widespread” ice is thought to be not only extremely sparse, but also likely locked in glass beads or bound in minerals. That’s in contrast to the thick ice deposits scientists once hoped existed at the moon’s poles.
ShadowCam observations indicate that relatively pure water ice is likely absent from the moon’s permanently shadowed regions, suggesting lunar ice may be less abundant than previously thought. doi.org/hbtbs4
So the new analysis of ShadowCam images did find some water ice at the moon’s poles, just not a lot of it. In the high-resolution images, the researchers identified a few small deposits, about 65-165 feet (20-50 meters) in size.
That’s a lot smaller than previous estimates had suggested.
Lead author Shuai Li is an associate researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Image via University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Using scattered light to see ice
ShadowCam is designed to peer into the darkest shadows on the moon. And it can use scattered sunlight to help see details in the darkness.
Rocks and dust scatter light differently than ice does. Rocks and dust send more light back toward the direction from which it came. But water ice scatters light forward. And the potential icy spots did exhibit both high reflectance and unique forward-scattering properties. These optical signatures are consistent with ice concentrations greater than 10%.
Lead author of the new study is Shuai Li, an associate researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the University of Hawaii’s Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. He said:
Water ice doesn’t just make the surface brighter. The way it scatters light is a fingerprint. By using stereo observations to look at these shadowed craters from different perspectives, we were able to detect this distinctive forward-scattering behavior for the first time.
I thought we’d find more bright, ice-rich areas. So the small number we found was a bit surprising. But the forward-scattering signal was a true and exciting surprise because it required stereo observations that were only possible during the extended mission.
View larger. | This view from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft in 2015 shows deposits of water ice at Mercury’s north pole (marked by yellow spots). Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/ Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Distinct difference from Mercury and Ceres
The findings are a bit of a mystery. Some other airless bodies, such as Mercury and Ceres, do have substantial water ice at their poles. And that’s despite the fact that the moon’s poles are colder than on Mercury or Ceres. Ceres is far out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But how could Mercury have any ice, being so close to the sun?
It’s because Mercury is virtually airless. Since there’s no atmosphere, the heat on the dayside doesn’t get trapped and transported to the nightside. So the nightside remains extremely cold, down to -292 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius) even though Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.
The new study also suggests that the hot dayside surface helps create more water from the solar wind when it impacts Mercury. On the other hand, space weathering from solar wind, volcanic degassing and mixing of rock layers from impacts might tend to destroy or bury surface ice.
Keep searching
The search for more water ice on the moon will continue. Notably, many of the small deposits that scientists have found are near young craters. So it’s possible there’s more ice below the surface.
This would be good news for future crewed missions to the moon. Water will be essential for any long-term habitation, as noted earlier. And while the results to date suggest relatively few pockets of water ice on the surface, the research team does expect to find more of them until 2028. Early that year, the Danuri probe will run out of battery power during a lunar eclipse.
There is also a good new article in the New York Times, with visualizations, of why humans’ return to the moon is important. And the role that water plays in the design of those missions.
Bottom line: Ice in moon’s shadows is scarce, NASA’s ShadowCam finds, with only small, scattered deposits instead of the abundant ice once expected.
View larger. | Scientists once spoke of possible rich deposits of water ice in the deep, permanently shadowed craters at the moon’s poles. But a new study suggests less ice in moon’s shadows than previously thought. In this map of the moon’s south pole, you see Shackleton Crater – about 12 miles or 19 km in diameter – in the center. And the south pole itself is approximately at 9 o’clock on its rim. The map was created from images from the LROC camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Image via NASA/ GSFC/ Arizona State University.
There are deposits of water ice at the moon’s poles. The ice is in dark, shadowed craters.
But there’s less ice than previous estimates had suggested, a new study shows.
Researchers used NASA’s ShadowCam instrument on the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, also known as Danuri, to peer into the deep dark moon shadows.
How much water-ice is there on the moon? That question is important for future exploration of the moon. For a time, scientists spoke of easily accessible and possibly abundant surface water-ice deposits near the moon’s poles. This would have been in permanently shadowed craters at the poles, which are the darkest, coldest regions of the moon. But now researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa have confirmed a 2023 study, suggesting significantly less ice at the moon’s poles than we thought. The moon’s poles still likely hold the moon’s largest reservoirs of ice. But recent studies suggest those deposits might be smaller and more patchy than earlier estimates indicated.
The researchers of the new study said in late March 2026 that ice in permanently shadowed moon craters exists only in low concentrations or small, isolated deposits. The researchers used data from NASA’s ShadowCam instrument on the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri.
The findings could have an impact on future human exploration of the moon. Astronauts will need water resources, especially for any future habitats on the moon’s surface. If there is less accessible water-ice, mission planners need to know now. Some water can be brought from Earth. But the more in-situ lunar water-ice, the better. Right now, the crew of Artemis 2 has looped around the moon and are now returning to Earth. They didn’t land on the surface, but – starting with Artemis 4 – they soon will.
View larger. | This image shows the view of a permanently shadowed region on the left. The map on the right shows how the nearby lunar surface scatters sunlight. The bright spot (blue arrow) is water ice. The scattered sunlight helps ShadowCam to see ice deposits in the dark shadows. Image via Li et al., 2026/ University of Hawaii at Manoa.
ShadowCam
ShadowCam provided the data to study the ice deposits. NASA-funded engineers led by a team at Arizona State University designed it specifically for this task. It can take images of details in the darkest moon shadows. It does this by capturing sunlight reflected off nearby crater walls.
Contrary to expectations, the researchers found no evidence of widespread water ice in the permanently shadowed regions at the moon’s poles. This was for concentrations above 20-30% by weight.
How about elsewhere on the moon? Previous studies had suggested more widespread lunar ice deposits. And it’s still possible some water-ice exists at mid-latitudes on the moon, but probably only in small, isolated pockets. What’s more, this “widespread” ice is thought to be not only extremely sparse, but also likely locked in glass beads or bound in minerals. That’s in contrast to the thick ice deposits scientists once hoped existed at the moon’s poles.
ShadowCam observations indicate that relatively pure water ice is likely absent from the moon’s permanently shadowed regions, suggesting lunar ice may be less abundant than previously thought. doi.org/hbtbs4
So the new analysis of ShadowCam images did find some water ice at the moon’s poles, just not a lot of it. In the high-resolution images, the researchers identified a few small deposits, about 65-165 feet (20-50 meters) in size.
That’s a lot smaller than previous estimates had suggested.
Lead author Shuai Li is an associate researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Image via University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Using scattered light to see ice
ShadowCam is designed to peer into the darkest shadows on the moon. And it can use scattered sunlight to help see details in the darkness.
Rocks and dust scatter light differently than ice does. Rocks and dust send more light back toward the direction from which it came. But water ice scatters light forward. And the potential icy spots did exhibit both high reflectance and unique forward-scattering properties. These optical signatures are consistent with ice concentrations greater than 10%.
Lead author of the new study is Shuai Li, an associate researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the University of Hawaii’s Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. He said:
Water ice doesn’t just make the surface brighter. The way it scatters light is a fingerprint. By using stereo observations to look at these shadowed craters from different perspectives, we were able to detect this distinctive forward-scattering behavior for the first time.
I thought we’d find more bright, ice-rich areas. So the small number we found was a bit surprising. But the forward-scattering signal was a true and exciting surprise because it required stereo observations that were only possible during the extended mission.
View larger. | This view from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft in 2015 shows deposits of water ice at Mercury’s north pole (marked by yellow spots). Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/ Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Distinct difference from Mercury and Ceres
The findings are a bit of a mystery. Some other airless bodies, such as Mercury and Ceres, do have substantial water ice at their poles. And that’s despite the fact that the moon’s poles are colder than on Mercury or Ceres. Ceres is far out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But how could Mercury have any ice, being so close to the sun?
It’s because Mercury is virtually airless. Since there’s no atmosphere, the heat on the dayside doesn’t get trapped and transported to the nightside. So the nightside remains extremely cold, down to -292 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius) even though Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.
The new study also suggests that the hot dayside surface helps create more water from the solar wind when it impacts Mercury. On the other hand, space weathering from solar wind, volcanic degassing and mixing of rock layers from impacts might tend to destroy or bury surface ice.
Keep searching
The search for more water ice on the moon will continue. Notably, many of the small deposits that scientists have found are near young craters. So it’s possible there’s more ice below the surface.
This would be good news for future crewed missions to the moon. Water will be essential for any long-term habitation, as noted earlier. And while the results to date suggest relatively few pockets of water ice on the surface, the research team does expect to find more of them until 2028. Early that year, the Danuri probe will run out of battery power during a lunar eclipse.
There is also a good new article in the New York Times, with visualizations, of why humans’ return to the moon is important. And the role that water plays in the design of those missions.
Bottom line: Ice in moon’s shadows is scarce, NASA’s ShadowCam finds, with only small, scattered deposits instead of the abundant ice once expected.
This is an artist’s impression of Earth’s earliest complex animals during the late Ediacaran period, before the Cambrian explosion. A study of new fossils shows humans’ invertebrate ancestors arose far earlier than scientists once thought. The discovery reshapes the timeline of early animal evolution. Image via The Conversation/ Xiaodong Wang. CC BY-SA.
Newly discovered fossils push back the origin of humans’ earliest invertebrate ancestors much further in time than scientists previously thought.
The fossils reveal key features linking modern animals – including humans – to simple, worm-like organisms.
The find reshapes our understanding of early animal evolution and the timeline of life on Earth.
Fossils show humans’ invertebrate ancestors are much older
Animal life is extraordinarily diverse and complex, having colonized almost all environments on Earth, from hostile hydrothermal vents in the deep sea to the skies across our continents.
But the planet was not always teeming with complex animal life. For the first 3.7 billion years after it originated, life was small, simple and largely confined to the oceans. This microbe-dominated world was a tumultuous place, with several major swings in its climate.
But all this appears to have changed about 538 million years ago during the Cambrian period. This critical juncture in the history of life saw animals bursting on to the scene in an event known as the Cambrian explosion.
The appearance of animals
All sorts of animals easily recognizable as groups alive today appeared in the fossil record, from echinoderms (starfish, sea cucumbers, urchins) and arthropods (spiders, crustaceans, insects) to various types of worm. This seemingly abrupt appearance of animals in a geological blink of an eye has puzzled scientists from Charles Darwin onwards.
Many of these new lifeforms belonged to a group of animals called Bilateria, so-named for their symmetrical left and right sides. This group now contains all animals with brains and complex musculature.
However, a longstanding question for paleontologists has been whether this astonishing diversification event happened all at once during the Cambrian explosion … or if ancestors of Cambrian and modern animal groups can be traced further back in time. Our new study, published in the journal Science, could help to resolve this question.
Strange bodies
The preceding Ediacaran period (635-538 million years ago) was much more enigmatic than the Cambrian. Many organisms from that period have defied efforts to classify them. Their strange bodies – often resembling shapeless sacs or thin, quilted pillows – have no obvious counterparts among living species, let alone modern animals.
As a result, interpretations of Ediacaran creatures have encompassed almost all multicellular forms of life, from fungi and lichens to an extinct kingdom unrelated to anything multicellular alive today. These Ediacaran organisms lived in close association with mats of microbes that smothered the seafloor. They were a type of ecosystem that did not survive the advent of grazing bilaterians.
More recent evidence relating to their reproductive strategy and how they grew and developed has suggested they were, in fact, animals. Albeit they were very simple ones without any direct, living descendants.
This fossil (plus artist’s reconstruction), found in the Jiangchuan biota (~554-539 million years ago), is an early cnidarian. This is the phylum that includes jellyfish, sea anemones and corals. Scale bar: 2mm. Image via Gaorong Li and Xiaodong Wang., CC BY-SA.
Transitioning to complex animals
It isn’t until the very end of the Ediacaran period that the fossil record gives hints that more complex – and recognizable – animals were around. And most of the evidence for these bilaterian animals has come from fossilized burrows and trails. These are suggestive of complex animal life, but tell us little about the animals that made them.
This has led to much debate about the nature of the transition from the Ediacaran to the Cambrian period – the start of which geologists have defined by the action of complex animals churning up ocean sediment for the first time.
A discovery to fill the fuzzy gap
In spring 2023, one of us, Gaorong Li – then a PhD student at Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology (YKLP) – made a discovery that helps to clarify this fuzzy gap between the weird Ediacaran world and the recognizable, complex animal-dominated Cambrian period.
Along with my PhD supervisors Wei Fan and Peiyun Cong, we explored Ediacaran rocks in the Chinese region of Eastern Yunnan. We were principally looking for fossil algae (seaweeds), the focus of my PhD thesis, in rocks known for well-preserved fossils called the Jiangchuan biota.
What we found in addition was a bizarre worm that lived tethered to the seafloor by an anchoring disc, and which could turn its strange proboscis inside out to collect food. These specimens were clearly complex animals, but not as they are known today.
We nicknamed it the bugle worm. And our team is still figuring out exactly where this strange beast fits into the classification of animals. Previously, it had been described based only on the disc anchoring it to the seafloor and named Cycliomedusa. But we found the whole organism, revealing it as something unexpected and strange.
Animals hiding in the rocks
As we continued splitting more and more rocks, it became clear there were more animals hiding in the Jiangchuan biota. In 2024 – now joined by a team from the University of Oxford including the co-authors of this article, Luke and Frankie – we went back into the field and pieced together this new fossil community.
We found some fossilized organisms characteristic of both the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods. But surprisingly, we also found some that had previously only been known from the time of the Cambrian explosion. These included a primitive animal similar to the Cambrian organism Mackenzia, as well as various worms and swimming predators called ctenophores.
Most striking of all, we found the oldest evidence for the group to which we humans belong: the deuterostomes.
Several of these specimens have a stalk and tentacles. They closely resemble a group of Cambrian fossils called cambroernids. These now-extinct animals are related to living starfish and acorn worms, the closest invertebrate relatives to humans. This shows our own evolutionary story has its roots in the Ediacaran period.
The discovery of diverse, complex animals in the Jingchuan biota suggests several animal groups shared the world with the weird and wonderful Ediacarans for millions of years. Diverse complex animal life has a more ancient heritage than the Cambrian explosion.
This is an artist’s impression of Earth’s earliest complex animals during the late Ediacaran period, before the Cambrian explosion. A study of new fossils shows humans’ invertebrate ancestors arose far earlier than scientists once thought. The discovery reshapes the timeline of early animal evolution. Image via The Conversation/ Xiaodong Wang. CC BY-SA.
Newly discovered fossils push back the origin of humans’ earliest invertebrate ancestors much further in time than scientists previously thought.
The fossils reveal key features linking modern animals – including humans – to simple, worm-like organisms.
The find reshapes our understanding of early animal evolution and the timeline of life on Earth.
Fossils show humans’ invertebrate ancestors are much older
Animal life is extraordinarily diverse and complex, having colonized almost all environments on Earth, from hostile hydrothermal vents in the deep sea to the skies across our continents.
But the planet was not always teeming with complex animal life. For the first 3.7 billion years after it originated, life was small, simple and largely confined to the oceans. This microbe-dominated world was a tumultuous place, with several major swings in its climate.
But all this appears to have changed about 538 million years ago during the Cambrian period. This critical juncture in the history of life saw animals bursting on to the scene in an event known as the Cambrian explosion.
The appearance of animals
All sorts of animals easily recognizable as groups alive today appeared in the fossil record, from echinoderms (starfish, sea cucumbers, urchins) and arthropods (spiders, crustaceans, insects) to various types of worm. This seemingly abrupt appearance of animals in a geological blink of an eye has puzzled scientists from Charles Darwin onwards.
Many of these new lifeforms belonged to a group of animals called Bilateria, so-named for their symmetrical left and right sides. This group now contains all animals with brains and complex musculature.
However, a longstanding question for paleontologists has been whether this astonishing diversification event happened all at once during the Cambrian explosion … or if ancestors of Cambrian and modern animal groups can be traced further back in time. Our new study, published in the journal Science, could help to resolve this question.
Strange bodies
The preceding Ediacaran period (635-538 million years ago) was much more enigmatic than the Cambrian. Many organisms from that period have defied efforts to classify them. Their strange bodies – often resembling shapeless sacs or thin, quilted pillows – have no obvious counterparts among living species, let alone modern animals.
As a result, interpretations of Ediacaran creatures have encompassed almost all multicellular forms of life, from fungi and lichens to an extinct kingdom unrelated to anything multicellular alive today. These Ediacaran organisms lived in close association with mats of microbes that smothered the seafloor. They were a type of ecosystem that did not survive the advent of grazing bilaterians.
More recent evidence relating to their reproductive strategy and how they grew and developed has suggested they were, in fact, animals. Albeit they were very simple ones without any direct, living descendants.
This fossil (plus artist’s reconstruction), found in the Jiangchuan biota (~554-539 million years ago), is an early cnidarian. This is the phylum that includes jellyfish, sea anemones and corals. Scale bar: 2mm. Image via Gaorong Li and Xiaodong Wang., CC BY-SA.
Transitioning to complex animals
It isn’t until the very end of the Ediacaran period that the fossil record gives hints that more complex – and recognizable – animals were around. And most of the evidence for these bilaterian animals has come from fossilized burrows and trails. These are suggestive of complex animal life, but tell us little about the animals that made them.
This has led to much debate about the nature of the transition from the Ediacaran to the Cambrian period – the start of which geologists have defined by the action of complex animals churning up ocean sediment for the first time.
A discovery to fill the fuzzy gap
In spring 2023, one of us, Gaorong Li – then a PhD student at Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology (YKLP) – made a discovery that helps to clarify this fuzzy gap between the weird Ediacaran world and the recognizable, complex animal-dominated Cambrian period.
Along with my PhD supervisors Wei Fan and Peiyun Cong, we explored Ediacaran rocks in the Chinese region of Eastern Yunnan. We were principally looking for fossil algae (seaweeds), the focus of my PhD thesis, in rocks known for well-preserved fossils called the Jiangchuan biota.
What we found in addition was a bizarre worm that lived tethered to the seafloor by an anchoring disc, and which could turn its strange proboscis inside out to collect food. These specimens were clearly complex animals, but not as they are known today.
We nicknamed it the bugle worm. And our team is still figuring out exactly where this strange beast fits into the classification of animals. Previously, it had been described based only on the disc anchoring it to the seafloor and named Cycliomedusa. But we found the whole organism, revealing it as something unexpected and strange.
Animals hiding in the rocks
As we continued splitting more and more rocks, it became clear there were more animals hiding in the Jiangchuan biota. In 2024 – now joined by a team from the University of Oxford including the co-authors of this article, Luke and Frankie – we went back into the field and pieced together this new fossil community.
We found some fossilized organisms characteristic of both the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods. But surprisingly, we also found some that had previously only been known from the time of the Cambrian explosion. These included a primitive animal similar to the Cambrian organism Mackenzia, as well as various worms and swimming predators called ctenophores.
Most striking of all, we found the oldest evidence for the group to which we humans belong: the deuterostomes.
Several of these specimens have a stalk and tentacles. They closely resemble a group of Cambrian fossils called cambroernids. These now-extinct animals are related to living starfish and acorn worms, the closest invertebrate relatives to humans. This shows our own evolutionary story has its roots in the Ediacaran period.
The discovery of diverse, complex animals in the Jingchuan biota suggests several animal groups shared the world with the weird and wonderful Ediacarans for millions of years. Diverse complex animal life has a more ancient heritage than the Cambrian explosion.
View larger. | Ready for this? It’s a prototype for walking robots on Mars at the Marslabor facility at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Its builders say a robot explorer like this one could be smaller, lighter, faster and more autonomous than current rovers on Mars or the moon. Image via Tomaso Bontognali/ Frontiers.
Robotic rovers on Mars have transformed our knowledge about the red planet. And they’ve provided tantalizing clues about possible past Martian life. But these rovers are also big, heavy and slow.
Walking robots might be the next step. Researchers in Switzerland and the Netherlands have been testing a prototype of a walking robot that could explore the Martian surface.
The robots move across the terrain on four legs. They’re smaller, lighter and faster than Mars rovers. They could carry arrays of science instruments. And they would also be semi-autonomous, requiring less control from humans back on Earth.
Robotic rovers have become the go-to way to explore our neighbor planet, Mars. And they’ve been super successful. But they’re also big, heavy and slow. They have to move carefully across the rocky and sandy terrain of Mars. Plus, communication delays between the rovers and Earth – and data transfer limitations – also affect their missions. Is there a better way? On March 31, 2026, researchers in Switzerland and the Netherlands announced a new idea: walking Mars robots. The research team said these robotic explorers would be semi-autonomous. This means they wouldn’t need regular assistance from humans back on Earth. And, their makers say, they could explore their surroundings – on both Mars or the moon – faster than rovers.
The researchers tested a prototype of the walking robot, named ANYmal. It could go to Mars or the moon. It could carry compact scientific instruments. And it could investigate interesting targets one-by-one and more quickly than current rovers can, according to the team.
On Mars, this would help speed up the process of searching for possible biosignatures. Biosignatures are chemical or other signs of ancient Mars life.
The researchers published the peer-reviewed details of the new exploration concept in Frontiers in Space Technologies on March 30, 2026.
Semi-autonomous legged robots equipped with compact instruments can rapidly survey planetary surfaces, accelerating resource prospecting and the search for biosignatures on the Moon and Mars.
The research team tested the robot prototype at the Marslabor facility at the University of Basel in Switzerland. The robot has four legs, reminiscent of toy dog robots. But this is no toy. It can carry a set of compact science instruments for either Martian or lunar exploration.
Marslabor simulates planetary or lunar terrain including rocks and regolith (tiny ground-up pieces of rock or dust).
And the testing was successful. Even though the science payloads on the robots are smaller than on rovers, they identified a variety of rock types and minerals. These include gypsum, carbonates, basalts, dunite and anorthosite. All of those could also be valuable resources for future astronaut missions.
View larger. | The walking robot prototype made autonomous measurements of a rock with its MICRO (microscopic imager) and Raman instruments. Right: examples of images from MICRO returned by the robot, showing the texture of 3 different lunar analogue materials in visible light, ultraviolet and infrared. Image via Gabriela Ligeza/ Frontiers.
Faster and more efficient exploration
One of the biggest advantages of using walking robots is speed. Rovers need to move fairly slowly and cautiously, especially on hazardous terrain. And the communication delays – for Mars in particular – mean that mission scientists and engineers back on Earth need to plan the rovers’ drives and other operations in advance.
The researchers compared two possible kinds of operations for the walking robots. One was traditional, with scientists providing input just as they do with rovers. The other was semi-autonomous, involving multiple science targets.
And indeed, the semi-autonomous approach was much faster. Exploratory missions typically took from 12 to 23 minutes to complete. By contrast, a rover mission took about 41 minutes to complete the same tasks. In addition, the walking robot was able to correctly identify all of its science targets. As the paper notes:
Our study demonstrates that a multi-target semi-autonomous exploration approach is a viable option for geological investigations in planetary surface missions where the inability to control a robot in real-time significantly slows down exploration times and, consequently, the scientific return of the mission.
View larger. | The Perseverance rover on Mars. Today’s rovers are incredible roving laboratories. But they are also large, heavy and slow. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.
A bridge to future exploration
While this may still not be as fast as a human could perform the same tasks, it is significantly more efficient than rovers, to be sure. As such, robots like this could fill the gap between current rovers and future human explorers.
And although the science instruments would need to be more compact and less complex than those on rovers, they could still provide much useful data. The robots’ enhanced agility over rovers plays a big part in this.
The paper states:
The findings provide valuable insights for the development of semi-autonomous, high-efficiency robotic exploration systems, contributing to the advancement of future Mars missions and planetary surface exploration.
It would certainly be interesting to see robots walking on Mars instead of roving on six wheels, wouldn’t it? And maybe even someday it would be humanoid robots!
Bottom line: Researchers in Europe are testing a prototype for walking robots on Mars or the moon. Robots like this would be faster and more autonomous than current rovers.
View larger. | Ready for this? It’s a prototype for walking robots on Mars at the Marslabor facility at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Its builders say a robot explorer like this one could be smaller, lighter, faster and more autonomous than current rovers on Mars or the moon. Image via Tomaso Bontognali/ Frontiers.
Robotic rovers on Mars have transformed our knowledge about the red planet. And they’ve provided tantalizing clues about possible past Martian life. But these rovers are also big, heavy and slow.
Walking robots might be the next step. Researchers in Switzerland and the Netherlands have been testing a prototype of a walking robot that could explore the Martian surface.
The robots move across the terrain on four legs. They’re smaller, lighter and faster than Mars rovers. They could carry arrays of science instruments. And they would also be semi-autonomous, requiring less control from humans back on Earth.
Robotic rovers have become the go-to way to explore our neighbor planet, Mars. And they’ve been super successful. But they’re also big, heavy and slow. They have to move carefully across the rocky and sandy terrain of Mars. Plus, communication delays between the rovers and Earth – and data transfer limitations – also affect their missions. Is there a better way? On March 31, 2026, researchers in Switzerland and the Netherlands announced a new idea: walking Mars robots. The research team said these robotic explorers would be semi-autonomous. This means they wouldn’t need regular assistance from humans back on Earth. And, their makers say, they could explore their surroundings – on both Mars or the moon – faster than rovers.
The researchers tested a prototype of the walking robot, named ANYmal. It could go to Mars or the moon. It could carry compact scientific instruments. And it could investigate interesting targets one-by-one and more quickly than current rovers can, according to the team.
On Mars, this would help speed up the process of searching for possible biosignatures. Biosignatures are chemical or other signs of ancient Mars life.
The researchers published the peer-reviewed details of the new exploration concept in Frontiers in Space Technologies on March 30, 2026.
Semi-autonomous legged robots equipped with compact instruments can rapidly survey planetary surfaces, accelerating resource prospecting and the search for biosignatures on the Moon and Mars.
The research team tested the robot prototype at the Marslabor facility at the University of Basel in Switzerland. The robot has four legs, reminiscent of toy dog robots. But this is no toy. It can carry a set of compact science instruments for either Martian or lunar exploration.
Marslabor simulates planetary or lunar terrain including rocks and regolith (tiny ground-up pieces of rock or dust).
And the testing was successful. Even though the science payloads on the robots are smaller than on rovers, they identified a variety of rock types and minerals. These include gypsum, carbonates, basalts, dunite and anorthosite. All of those could also be valuable resources for future astronaut missions.
View larger. | The walking robot prototype made autonomous measurements of a rock with its MICRO (microscopic imager) and Raman instruments. Right: examples of images from MICRO returned by the robot, showing the texture of 3 different lunar analogue materials in visible light, ultraviolet and infrared. Image via Gabriela Ligeza/ Frontiers.
Faster and more efficient exploration
One of the biggest advantages of using walking robots is speed. Rovers need to move fairly slowly and cautiously, especially on hazardous terrain. And the communication delays – for Mars in particular – mean that mission scientists and engineers back on Earth need to plan the rovers’ drives and other operations in advance.
The researchers compared two possible kinds of operations for the walking robots. One was traditional, with scientists providing input just as they do with rovers. The other was semi-autonomous, involving multiple science targets.
And indeed, the semi-autonomous approach was much faster. Exploratory missions typically took from 12 to 23 minutes to complete. By contrast, a rover mission took about 41 minutes to complete the same tasks. In addition, the walking robot was able to correctly identify all of its science targets. As the paper notes:
Our study demonstrates that a multi-target semi-autonomous exploration approach is a viable option for geological investigations in planetary surface missions where the inability to control a robot in real-time significantly slows down exploration times and, consequently, the scientific return of the mission.
View larger. | The Perseverance rover on Mars. Today’s rovers are incredible roving laboratories. But they are also large, heavy and slow. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.
A bridge to future exploration
While this may still not be as fast as a human could perform the same tasks, it is significantly more efficient than rovers, to be sure. As such, robots like this could fill the gap between current rovers and future human explorers.
And although the science instruments would need to be more compact and less complex than those on rovers, they could still provide much useful data. The robots’ enhanced agility over rovers plays a big part in this.
The paper states:
The findings provide valuable insights for the development of semi-autonomous, high-efficiency robotic exploration systems, contributing to the advancement of future Mars missions and planetary surface exploration.
It would certainly be interesting to see robots walking on Mars instead of roving on six wheels, wouldn’t it? And maybe even someday it would be humanoid robots!
Bottom line: Researchers in Europe are testing a prototype for walking robots on Mars or the moon. Robots like this would be faster and more autonomous than current rovers.
