NASA says that once it decommissions the International Space Station in 2030, it plans to return the module to the Earth by crashing it into the Pacific Ocean.

In a press release on Monday, the agency said that while the Biden Administration has extended the ISS's space station operations through 2030, the agency has been planning to transition the use of space stations to commercial businesses.

According to the agency, allowing private companies to handle space station operations will "develop both the supply and demand side of the low-Earth orbit commercial economy and the technical steps and budget required for transition."

"The private sector is technically and financially capable of developing and operating commercial low-Earth orbit destinations, with NASA's assistance. We look forward to sharing our lessons learned and operations experience with the private sector to help them develop safe, reliable, and cost-effective destinations in space," Phil McAlister, NASA Headquarters director of commercial space, said in a statement. "The report we have delivered to Congress describes, in detail, our comprehensive plan for ensuring a smooth transition to commercial destinations after retirement of the International Space Station in 2030."

Once NASA officially retires the International Space Station, the agency plans to bring the module down from Low-Earth Orbit in 2031.

According to a report released last month, NASA will gradually direct the station into a series of maneuvers that will lower its altitude. At a certain point, NASA will direct the ISS into re-entry burn over the Pacific Ocean, where it will crash into the water.

NASA says it will aim for the spacecraft to land in the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area — a remote oceanic region southeast of New Zealand, where scientists often direct spacecraft to land, as it's far away from human-inhabited landmasses.

But just because NASA is planning for the end of the ISS era doesn't mean the space station won't be busy in the years to come.

"The International Space Station is entering its third and most productive decade as a groundbreaking scientific platform in microgravity," said Robyn Gatens, NASA's director of the International Space Station. "This third decade is one of results, building on our successful global partnership to verify exploration and human research technologies to support deep space exploration, continue to return medical and environmental benefits to humanity, and lay the groundwork for a commercial future in low-Earth orbit. We look forward to maximizing these returns from the space station through 2030 while planning for transition to commercial space destinations that will follow."

Scientists recently discovered a mysterious object in outer space that, for a time, was sending out regular bursts of energy in a way that researchers hadn't previously observed.

According to an article published in Nature on Wednesday, scientists observed the mysterious object while mapping radio frequencies in deep space in early 2018.

They noticed the object was emitting a low-frequency radio signal about every 18 minutes for several months. The bursts of energy would last anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute. When visible, the bursts were among the brightest sources of radio waves viewable from Earth, according to CNN.

Vice reports that the energy pulses were observed between January and March of 2018 but haven't been seen since.

Officials aren't sure what the object was, though they have some theories. Some suspect that it could be the remnants of a collapsed star or a "white dwarf" — a small, dense star that's typically about the size of a planet.

Others believe the object was a "magnetar" — a neuron star with a very strong magnetic field. However, CNN reports that typical magnetars flare-up over the span of seconds, and an 18-minute interval for flares would be highly unusual.

Though the object was thousands of light-years away, scientists were still amazed by the mysterious object's close proximity to Earth.

"That was completely unexpected. It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there's nothing known in the sky that does that. And it's really quite close to us — about 4,000 light-years away. It's in our galactic backyard," Natasha Hurley-Walker, one of the study's authors, said in a statement to CNN.

A small piece of debris floating in Earth's orbit has damaged a portion of the International Space Station, according to a press release from the Canadian Space Agency.

According to the May 28 press release, officials noticed the damage to a robotic arm attached to the space station earlier this month.

The press release notes that officials discovered that a hole, about 5 mm wide, had been punctured a boom segment of Canadarm2.

While NASA and other space agencies around the world are tracking more than 23,000 objects that can be as small as a softball, the Canadian Space Agency noted that some space debris is too tiny to track.

Officials suspect that it was one of those little pieces of debris — whether a pebble or a fleck of paint from a nearby satellite — that punctured the robotic arm.

Luckily, the robotic arm is still operational and "unaffected" by the damage. The Canadian Space Agency indicated that Canadarm2 is still conducting planned operations.

"Space can be a harsh and unforgiving environment for the robots and humans that explore it," the agency said in a press release.

Researchers say that a NASA spacecraft currently traveling beyond the solar system has detected a constant hum emanating from deep space.

According to a new research study published Monday, the faint but constant vibrations were recorded by Voyager 1, a spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977 that’s still operational and sending signals back to Earth.

Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, and has continued its journey into the final frontier. In 2012, scientists confirmed that probe had left the heliosphere and entered interstellar space.

Though it is now 14 billion miles away from Earth, Voyager 1 continues to send signals back to NASA. Throughout the years, NASA has received audio recordings of gas emissions from the deep regions of outer space.

However, according to a study published Monday in Nature Astronomy, researchers have now detected a faint hum in between those gas emissions.

According to a press release from Cornell University, Stella Koch Ocker, a Cornell doctoral student in astronomy, discovered the humming.

“It’s very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth,” Ocker said, according to a press release. “We’re detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas.”

“The interstellar medium is like a quiet or gentle rain,” said senior author James Cordes, the George Feldstein Professor of Astronomy (A&S) in the Cornell press release. “In the case of a solar outburst, it’s like detecting a lightning burst in a thunderstorm and then it’s back to a gentle rain.”

Researchers hope that further studying the emissions will help scientists understand the heliosphere and the conditions of the interstellar environment.