Space Exploration

After several weeks of sensitive searches for rings, small moons and other potential hazards around 2014 MU69, a Kuiper belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, the dozen-member New Horizons hazard watch team gave the ‘all clear’ for the spacecraft to remain on a path that takes it about 2,200 miles (3,500 …

Astronomers observing the young protostar MM 1a have discovered an unusual method of binary star formation. While binary stars are not uncommon — they may account for half or more of all visible stars — the mechanics at work in the case of MM 1a are quite different than what …

Our simplistic nine-planet view of the solar system was shattered years ago when scientists learned Pluto was not unique in the outer solar system. We have since discovered more “dwarf planets,” and an international team of astronomers has just spotted the most distant such planetoid yet. The object known as …

A team of planetary researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom has discovered that Saturn’s rings are younger than previously thought and that they are actually disappearing at a rapid pace through a process called ‘ring rain.’ The findings were published in the journal Icarus. With Saturn hanging …

NASA’s next Mars rover doesn’t have a name yet, but it does have a landing zone. You can take a closer look at the Mars 2020 rover’s home-to-be in a new video assembled from the latest NASA orbital imagery. Get ready to take a trip across Jezero Crater, an ancient …

A liquid ocean in contact with a silicate interior makes Jupiter’s icy moon Europa a prime location for life. This possibility is compounded if geologic processes within its ice shell allow surface materials to mix with the ocean and recharge chemicals required for life. Unfortunately, this ice shell represents a …

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe set a record when it launched earlier this year as the fastest spacecraft in history with a top speed of around 430,000 miles per hour. It’s not done making history, though. Parker has already completed its first flyby of the sun’s corona, and NASA says the …

Virgin Galactic has been operating for a long time compared with other private spaceflight companies, but it had never actually flown in space before now. Well, the definition of space is somewhat hazy, but Virgin’s pilots are astronauts by at least one definition. This marks the highest altitude its spaceliner has …

There aren’t a lot of Hot Neptunes in the galaxy, and it’s not entirely clear why. A Hot Neptune is, as the name implies, a Neptune-sized planet orbiting within 1 AU of its host star. While we’ve definitely detected a few of them, there simply aren’t as many as we …

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to its next flyby target, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, also known as Ultima Thule. This composite image of Ultima Thule was taken just 33 hours before the December 2 course-correction maneuver that fine-tuned New Horizons’ trajectory for …