Calla Cofield

A Russian cargo craft may have failed due to a problem with the rocket that launched it into space, and an astronaut explains how to "go" in space. Here are Space.com's top stories of the week.

As New Horizons nears its closest approach with Pluto, the mission team is hosting 'Pluto-Palooza' events in multiple locations around the country.

Do jokes about the name 'Uranus" get in the way of people actually learning about the gas giant planet?

A science institute at Cornell University that is focused on the search for life elsewhere in the universe has been renamed the Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dots and Beyond.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's late-night, science-themed talk show, "StarTalk," has been renewed for a second season by the National Geographic Channel.

A cosmic record has been broken: The most distant galaxy ever measured is 13.1 billion light-years away from Earth, making it one of the earliest galaxies to ever form in the universe.

Ropes of hot material that twist and writhe on the surface of the sun appear in unprecedented detail thanks to new observations.

Two amateur astronomers launched a model "Star Wars" X-wing vehicle into near space — over 20 miles above the Earths' surface — and captured the flight on video.

Over 400,000 volunteer citizen scientists have helped to identify over 2 million new celestial objects and five new supernovas in a wealth of data collected by the SkyMapper telescope.

Photographers around the world captured gorgeous shots of this year's Lyrid meteor shower, which peaked Wednesday night (April 22).

An awe-inspiring landscape of multicolored dust and jewel-like stars has been unveiled as the official image of the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope.

A storm of sci-fi movie trailers hit the web this past week, featuring everything from iconic spaceships to parallel universes.

Astronaut Scott Kelly has started a geography game, asking Twitter users to identify locations on Earth based on photos from space.

Exploding stars, whirling galaxies and bubbling nebulas can be seen on some of the massive screens that line New York City's Times Square.

European astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti tweeted a photo of herself aboard the International Space Station, wearing a uniform from the "Star Trek: Voyager" TV series.

Astrophysicist Kip Thorne's book on black holes was a revelation for me in college, both for its science content and Thorne's willingness to engage the public.