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A new NASA mission, launching today (Jan. 25), will ride along with a commercial satellite to investigate the boundary between Earth and space — a critical zone that changes based on the sun above and terrestrial weather below. The launch window stretches from 5:20 p.m. to 6:05 p.m. EST (2220 to 2305 GMT), and you […]

LITTLETON, Colo. — NASA’s next Mars mission — a lander designed to probe the Red Planet’s deep interior and eavesdrop on rumbling Marsquakes — is reaching “ship and shoot” status. As spacecraft names go, this one’s is a mouthful: Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. That has been mercifully shortened to InSight .  […]

The upcoming Super Blue Blood Moon eclipse will not only be a treat for skywatchers ; the rare celestial event will also give scientists a chance to discover some unknown characteristics about moon dust, like how porous and “fluffy” it is across the lunar surface. On Jan. 31, the full moon is in the perfect […]

SpaceX’s new megarocket, the Falcon Heavy , briefly roared to life today (Jan. 24) during a much-anticipated engine test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida that sets the stage for the booster’s maiden flight in upcoming weeks.  Standing atop NASA’s historic Launch Pad 39A , the Falcon Heavy rocket ignited all 27 engines on […]

David Scott’s mission to the moon focused on science and featured the first lunar road trip. David Scott flew in space three times, including one mission to the moon. He survived a harrowing spin aboard Gemini 8, piloted the command module on Apollo 9 for the first docking of the command module and the lunar […]

Artist’s concept of the dwarf planet Haumea and its two satellites (Hi’iaka and Namaka). Haumea is a dwarf planet that orbits the sun far beyond Neptune. It is about the same size as Pluto and has two moons. One of its notable characteristics is how fast it spins on its axis.  Discovery Just after Christmas […]

[embedded content] That’s a bingo! Amid news that director Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction,” “Inglorious Basterds”) is involved in the pitch for the next “Star Trek” film, Nerdist Presents put together a PG-13 video that imagines what a Tarantino-style Trek flick would look like.  Tarantino’s films are frequently loaded with graphic or over-the-top violence, so the […]

A new experiment on the International Space Station is testing an innovative “bone glue” that might help reverse osteoporosis, the crippling bone disease that affects over 200 million people worldwide. Additionally, the glue — called Tetranite — could be used to repair bone loss in astronauts on long-duration spaceflights. “If we can show that our […]

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (L) and writer/director Ann Druyan at the Fox and National Geographic channel screening of “Cosmos: A Spacetime Oddyssey” on Aug. 3, 2014. LOS ANGELES — A new season of the science TV series “Cosmos” is set to premiere in the spring of 2019 , penned by one of the show’s original […]

There’s a new exoplanet-hunter in town. Three new telescopes at the La Silla Observatory in northern Chile successfully peered into the night sky for the first time, providing scientists with a new tool to search for light signals from distant worlds. The French-led ExTrA (Exoplanets in Transits and their Atmospheres) project will help scientists look […]

Scott Kelly returned to Earth from the International Space Station March 1 after 340 days as part of NASA’s ambitious yearlong space station mission. Scott Kelly is a former NASA astronaut who is best known for spending nearly a year on the International Space Station and for spending 520 days in space, which puts him […]

Rocket Lab’s “The Humanity Star,” now in Earth orbit, is expected to become the brightest object in the night sky A commercial space company seeking to shine among the satellite launch industry has secretly sent its own “star” into orbit. Rocket Lab on Wednesday (Jan. 24) revealed to the world that “The Humanity Star” is […]

This artist’s image reveals the “multimessenger” emission. As cosmic rays are accelerated by a supermassive black hole, the high-energy rays escaping are trapped in the environment around it. The high-energy neutrinos and gamma-rays are produced in the magnetized environment during their confinement and intergalactic space as they move through it. The three particles eventually reach […]