Space

NASA is preparing to send a probe closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft has ventured, enduring wicked heat while zooming through the solar corona to study this outermost part of the stellar atmosphere that gives rise to the solar wind. The Parker Solar Probe, a robotic spacecraft the size of a small car, […]

If you see a blazing red light in the sky tonight (July 31) don’t panic. It’s just Mars, rushing toward Earth. Not that there is any danger of collision—the two planets will be 35.8 million miles apart, give or take a few miles. But Mars will be closer to the Earth than it has been […]

LONDON/SYDNEY—A blood moon will dominate the sky across much of the world on Friday night when the earth’s natural satellite moves into the shadow of our planet for the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st Century. The total eclipse will last 1 hour, 42 minutes and 57 seconds, though a partial eclipse precedes and follows, […]

BERLIN—A team of international scientists observing a star in the Milky Way have for the first time confirmed Einstein’s predictions of what happens to the motion of a star passing close to a supermassive black hole. Einstein’s 100-year-old general theory of relativity predicted that light from stars would be stretched to longer wavelengths by the […]

The moon will transform into a blood red hue this Friday night, July 27, during the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century. People around the world, except in North America, will be able to catch at least some of the celestial sight. On the same day, Mars will appear at its brightest directly below […]

FRANKFURT – Europe launched four more Galileo satellites on Wednesday, taking the number in orbit to 26 and moving a step closer to having its own navigation system, just as the program has become the latest flashpoint in Brexit negotiations. The satellites, which will be part of the European Union’s alternative to the U.S. Global […]

Using a radar instrument on an orbiting spacecraft, scientists have spotted what they said on Wednesday appears to be a sizable salt-laden lake under ice on the southern polar plain of Mars, a body of water they called a possible habitat for microbial life. The reservoir they detected—roughly 12 miles (20 km) in diameter, shaped […]

FARNBOROUGH, England —Britain wants to build its first spaceport for launching satellites in Scotland, with the government kick-starting the project by handing almost £30 million ($40 million) in grants to companies including Lockheed Martin. UK Business Minister Greg Clark said the new site at Sutherland on the northerly-most tip of mainland Scotland would provide facilities […]

CARNARVON, South Africa—The 64-dish MeerKAT radio telescope was launched in the remote South African town of Carnarvon. The goal of this scientific megaproject is to uncover cosmic mysteries from dark energy to detecting extraterrestrial life. Built at a cost of 4.4 billion rand ($2.8 billion), MeerKAT will be incorporated into the complex Square Kilometre Array […]

ORLANDO, Fla.—Plans to launch the first NASA astronauts since 2011 to the International Space Station (ISS) from the United States look set to be delayed due to incomplete safety measures and accountability holes in the agency’s commercial crew program, according to a federal report released on Wednesday. SpaceX and Boeing Company are the two main […]

Israel is planning to land a spacecraft on the moon in early 2019, scientists announced on Tuesday. Project managers said that the SpaceIL, an unmanned craft built by Israeli engineers, is slated to take off later this year and land on the moon on Feb. 13 next year. Only three nations worldwide have achieved a […]

SpaceX has made a successful delivery to the International Space Station, according to Geek.com. The SpaceX capsule arrived on Monday, July 2, just 3 days after launching from Cape Canaveral, Flordia. The 6,000-pound package included an AI robot named Cimon, genetically identical mice, coffee, and ice cream. The robot features artificial intelligence capabilities, has a head larger […]

Digitaltrends reports that the Japanese space probe, Hayabusa 2, has finally reached its destination after a long 42-month journey. The space probe arrived on the asteroid named Ryugu, formally known as Asteroid 162173. The asteroid is a near-Earth sized object and is about 200 million miles from Earth. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed the […]

Scientists have taken the first ever image of a planet in the process of being born, in the dusty disc surrounding a young star. The fledgling planet is a gas giant, several times the size of Jupiter, in the Centaurus constellation. Astronomers led by a group at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy took the […]

On Feb. 6, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its largest rocket into the blue Florida sky. Onboard was “Starman,” a dummy strapped into the billionaire’s cherry red Tesla roadster. Minutes later, fans cheered as Musk topped himself by nailing a simultaneous landing of the Falcon Heavy’s boosters. It was arguably a turning point for the commercial space age. Airlines were somewhat less thrilled. […]

TOKYO—A Japanese space probe named after a falcon arrived at an asteroid 186.41 million miles from Earth on Wednesday after a three-and-a half year journey on a mission to seek the origins of life. The Hayabusa 2 blasted off in December 2014 for the asteroid Ryugu on a pioneering mission to take samples that scientists […]

A Japanese spacecraft has gotten its first clear view of Ryugu, an oddly-shaped asteroid that many say looks like a dango dumpling. Hayabusa2, the Japanese spacecraft, is set to arrive on the asteroid around June 27th. Although Ryugu appears to be smooth like a dumpling, it is riddled with craters, according to the Japanese Space […]

Over the last 10 years, scientists have been observing bright infrared light and flares coming from the location of two colliding galaxies. In a newly published study, scientists say that from their modeling, they believe they have most likely been observing a tidal disruption event (TDE), or the tearing apart of a star by a […]

Scientists say that they have found proof of water on the moon—by looking in the desert in northwest Africa. A mineral that requires the presence of water to form was discovered in a lunar meteorite by a team of Japanese scientists. They identified the mineral moganite in just one of 13 lunar meteorites, which they […]

WASHINGTON—An immense dust storm that may soon encircle Mars is threatening one of NASA’s rovers on the planet’s surface, with the vehicle becoming dormant and unresponsive at a site called Perseverance Valley, U.S. space agency officials said on Wednesday. The officials, however, expressed optimism that the Opportunity rover, which was built to operate for three months but […]