The spacecraft that has quietly rewritten our understanding of Mars just crossed a very visible milestone: the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured its 100,000th close-up view of the Red Planet.

When the orbit of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft took it behind the Red Planet on December 6th, ground controllers expected a temporary loss of signal (LoS).

NASA's LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) imaged China's Chang'e 6 sample return spacecraft on the far side of the moon on June 7. Chang'e 6 landed on June 1, and when LRO passed over the landing site ...