Space Exploration

Mars may have been a watery and temperate place in the distant past, but it’s been a giant dustball for many eons. That doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting things on the planet and even the potential for life. Liquid water may be largely absent on the surface, but a stunning …

Both SpaceX and Boeing are working toward certification of their manned spacecraft for future NASA flights, but the timeline has been pushed back several times. A new announcement from Boeing could indicate another delay is coming, too. According to the aerospace firm, an “anomaly” occurred in June when it tested …

As locations for life go, the Moon would seem to be a non-starter — especially given what we suspect about the circumstances of its creation. “In the beginning,” our hypothetical sacred text might read, “The Earth was smashed by another planetesimal, Thea. This impact turned the surface of our hapless …

The weather on Earth can be extreme and downright awe-inspiring at times, but Mars probably has us beat. The annual storm season on Mars doesn’t include torrential rains, but the dust storms can completely encircle the planet. Mars’ current storm season resulted in one of these monster storms, but they …

On the surface, Blue Origin and SpaceX have several things in common. They were both founded by technology billionaires, and they both develop reusable rocket technology. However, while Elon Musk’s SpaceX is focused on cargo launches and eventual astronaut transport to the International Space Station (ISS), Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin …

A multi-year project to explore the universe in new ways is one step closer to completion. South Africa has finally switched on a highly sensitive radio telescope called MeerKAT, which is part of a global project called the Square Kilometer Array. With MeerKAT online, scientists can scan the sky and …

A newly released image of the planet Neptune shows just how far telescope technology has come in recent years. This view of Neptune is almost impossibly clear compared with past attempts, thanks to a recent upgrade to the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile. …

Famed astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered the first four moons of Jupiter way back in the early 1600s. More than 400 years later, astronomers are still finding moons orbiting the solar system’s largest planet. We’re not just talking about one or two stragglers, either. Astronomers from the Carnegie Institution for Science …

The US has lacked any manned space flight capabilities since the Shuttle was retired back in 2011, but the goal has been to get commercial launch operations up and running to fill in the gap. However, that process has been much slower than originally envisioned. According to a new report …

When scientists discovered the asteroid 2017 YE5, they first thought they’d found an ordinary NEO (near-Earth object) that passed within 16 lunar distances on June 21, 2018. This close approach — the closest YE5 has been in 170 years — gave us an unprecedented look at the small asteroid and …