World News: Your weekend long reads 🗞️

Saturday, August 1

Good morning, friends of The Short List!

While things on Earth have been ~ a bit ~ chaotic lately, I thought we might want to focus a molecule of our attention on a space where some pretty cool things are happening: Space!

In the past few weeks, two spacecraft have been launched to Mars, and on Thursday, one more was sent. Here's why that's a big deal: It's bringing NASA one step closer in taking humans to Mars.

But that's not all that's happening in space:

•	Two teenage schoolgirls in India discovered an asteroid near Mars. It's moving toward Earth. ☄️
•	NASA is launching a balloon the size of a football stadium into the stratosphere so researchers can study the formation of stars. 🚀
•	Want to see a meteor shower tonight? Look to the southern sky to see the Alpha Capricornids, notable for the number of bright fireballs produced during its activity period. ✨

And now back to our regularly programmed long reads 👇

NASA's mission to Mars looks for signs of life

An unmanned rover will look for clues of ancient life in the dry bed of a vanished lake in NASA's upcoming Mars mission – and, for the first time ever, fly a drone-sized helicopter in the thin Martian air.