Space Exploration

Space Exploration

Colorful interstellar gas and dust form towering pillars in a star-forming region of space.
A deep dive into the chaotic journey of star formation.
Bullet Cluster separation mass gravity x-ray lensing
NASA's only flagship X-ray telescope ever, Chandra, still works and has no planned successor. So why does the President want to kill it?
Phases of a partial lunar eclipse progression against a dark sky during the penumbral eclipse.
The least exciting of all eclipses, a penumbral lunar eclipse, foreshadows the spectacular show that April 8th's total eclipse will bring.
black hole hit Earth
No matter how you define the end, including the demise of humanity, all life, or even the planet itself, our ultimate destruction awaits.
An image of a dead galaxy with a square in the middle taken by JWST.
Given enough time, all galaxies will expel their star-forming material and wind up dead. Is this the earliest one, or is it just asleep?
A group of stars and galaxies in space.
Galaxies don't simply feed their central supermassive black holes, but the activity generated inside affects the entire galaxy and more.
parity mirror universe
Symmetries aren't just about folding or rotating a piece of paper, but have a profound array of applications when it comes to physics.
An image of the future of US astronomy with a large telescope inside a building.
Ground-based facilities enable the greatest scientific production in all of astronomy. The NSF needs to be ambitious, and it's now or never.
An image of a starry sky with numerous lines, depicting the concept of space pollution.
In 1957, humanity launched our first satellite; today's number is nearly 10,000, with 500,000+ more planned. Space is no longer pristine.
An artist's impression of an asteroid in space.
The detection of two celestial interlopers careening through our solar system has scientists eagerly anticipating more.
Illustration of the solar system's planets and their predicted fates, with some being swallowed by the sun as it dies and others stripped of their atmospheres or ejected.
For now, our Solar System's eight planets are all safe, and relatively stable. Billions of years from now, everything will be different.
A small piece of rock from Germany on a white surface.
Meanwhile meteorite hunters rushed to Berlin to find this most rare space rock.
A woman is working on a robot in a factory.
NASA gave three robots plans for a moon shelter, and the robots figured out how to build it.
Planets in varying sizes orbiting around a bright central star in a purple-hued cosmos, where life persists.
There are plenty of life-friendly stellar systems in the Universe today. But at some point in the far future, life's final extinction will occur.
Comparison of early Mars with abundant water and a thicker atmosphere versus the dry and arid Mars of today, much like Venus, which also died in terms of its potential to support life.
In the early stages of our Solar System, there were three life-friendly planets: Venus, Earth, and Mars. Only Earth thrived. Here's why.
gaia ESA milky way
For thousands of years, humanity had no idea how far away the stars were. In the 1600s, Newton, Huygens, and Hooke all claimed to get there.
An image of the earth with a mountain in the background, showcasing terraforming potential.
Whenever someone waxes poetic about terraforming alien worlds, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the ethical implications of the proposal.
Nasa's curiosity rover on mars.
The case for why NASA should pivot to searching for current — not ancient — signs of life.
A view of jupiter from space.
NASA's Juno mission, in orbit around Jupiter, occasionally flies past its innermost large moon: Io. The volcanic activity is unbelievable.
A bright light in the sky.
As planets with too many volatiles and too little mass orbit their parent stars, their atmospheres photoevaporate, spelling doom for some.
A tunnel is being constructed in a tunnel.
The DUNE project will beam tiny neutrinos across vast distances. But the first step involved moving a heavier material: 1 million tons of rock.
wormhole nasa illustration
Without wormholes, warp drive, or some type of new matter, energy, or physics, everyone is limited by the speed of light. Or are they?
A computer-generated image of a bright celestial object with an accretion disk, possibly representing what the sun looked like when it was born.
It took 9.2 billion years of cosmic evolution before our Sun and Solar System even began to form. Such a small event has led to so much.
Nasa's JWST captures spiral galaxies in a series of photos.
Stars are born, live, and die within the spiral arms of galaxies like the Milky Way. These 19 JWST spirals deliver unprecedented riches.
An image of an egg with a blue and white pattern on it.
If there’s life lurking on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, could our instruments even detect it?
An image of the surface of Mars, showcasing its captivating and unique geological formations resembling a grand canyon.
Valles Marineris is the Solar System's grandest canyon, many times longer, wider, and deeper than the Grand Canyon. What scarred Mars so?
A digitally generated image of a glowing, elongated object framed by a translucent rectangle against a dark background with cosmic web-like structures.
On the largest cosmic scales, galaxies line up along filaments, with great clusters forming at their intersection. Here's how it took shape.
A black background with the earth in the foreground.
Two scientists recently wagered a bottle of whiskey. The bet? Whether we'll find evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life in the next 15 years.
primordial black holes
Today, supermassive black holes and their host galaxies tell a specific story in terms of mass. But JWST reveals a different story early on.
An image of a star nebula in space.
A new measurement offers insights on the density of the mysterious force driving the Universe's expansion.