Space Exploration

Space Exploration

Europa may be difficult to access. But if a recent study is correct, its subsurface ocean would be more accessible than previously thought.
NEO Surveyor
Most potentially hazardous asteroids remain unidentified. NEO surveyor could change that, but only if it's funded, and soon.
life mars
Was there ever life on Mars? Is there life on Mars now? Did it originate there or here, on Earth? All possibilities are fascinating.
It was supposed to have a 5.5-10 year lifetime, and take 6 months to calibrate. It's performing better than anyone anticipated.
If there are human-sized creatures walking around on other planets, would we be able to view them directly?
alien messages
There are pros and cons to sending interstellar messages to aliens that may or may not exist.
spinlaunch
Spin, spin, spin — fire! The startup’s radical system could make satellite launches cheaper and cleaner.
planet 9
Pluto failed to meet the definition of a planet, but some astronomers think there might be a legitimate Planet 9 out there.
The recently discovered Oort cloud comet, Bernardinelli–Bernstein, has the largest known nucleus: 119 km. Here's what it could do to Earth.
The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter recently captured images that could help scientists better under the mysterious physics of our Sun.
dyson spheres
A new paper combines two concepts from the edges of astrophysics: Dyson Spheres and black holes. A Type III civilization could combine them.
finite or infinite
As far as we can tell, there's no limit to how far it goes on; only a limit to how far we can see. Could the Universe truly be infinite?
An optical telescope with a massive 20-foot (6-meter) mirror has an eye-popping price tag of $11 billion.
earendel
The Hubble Space Telescope, 32 years after its launch, broke the all-time record for most distant star. It won't do better.
The story of how Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were made isn't a universal one. Some gas giants were built different.
earendel
The light from Earendel took 12.9 billion years to reach Hubble. The star is millions of times brighter than our Sun and 50 times as massive.
mercury diamonds
Due to a crust of carbon, the absence of oxygen, and constant bombardment from meteorites, the planet Mercury may be littered with diamonds.
Galactic archaeology has uncovered a spectacular find: the Milky Way already existed more than 13 billion years ago.
alien life
Multiple lines of evidence — physical, chemical, and biological — must converge for scientists to conclude that alien life has been found.
michio kaku
Michio Kaku predicts, among other things, how we'll build cities on Mars and why cancer will one day be like the common cold.
The closest star system to Earth, just over 4 light-years away, has three stars and at least one Earth-sized planet. Is it time to go there?
cosmic dark ages
The James Webb Space Telescope could help scientists learn about the cosmic dark ages and how they ended.
coldest place in the universe
Empty, intergalactic space is just 2.725 K: not even three degrees above absolute zero. But the Boomerang Nebula is even colder.
Forty Starlink satellites were destroyed earlier this year in a geomagnetic storm.
moon rock
Knowing that technology would advance in the future, NASA put some moon rock samples into storage without opening them. Now, they have.
ai drone meteorite
Aerial drone footage was sent to an AI trained to track down space rocks.
The far infrared reveals both the coldest and hottest gas in the Universe, and can teach us what no other wavelength range can.
Is there any good reason for assigning North and South the way we do, or could we have just as easily done the reverse?
planets march 2022
In the night sky for March of 2022, only stars and the Moon, not planets, will greet you. The real show, however, arrives just before dawn.