China to Launch Ambitious Asteroid-Comet Mission in 2022 By Mike Wall China aims to launch a bold sample-return mission just three years from now, according to the nation's state-run Xinhua news agency.
A House-Size Asteroid Zipped by Earth Today By Hanneke Weitering An asteroid the size of a house gave Earth a close shave today (April 18), passing nearer to our planet than any other space rock will for the rest of this year — that is, as far as we know.
What Is the Eagle Nebula? By Nola Taylor Redd This impressive cloud of cosmic gas and dust is an ancient star nursery.
Astronomers Finally Spot Universe's First Molecule in Distant Nebula By Samantha Mathewson A flying observatory has pinpointed the first type of molecule that formed in the universe after the Big Bang.
Image of the Day By Hanneke Weitering This is the last photo that the Israeli moon lander named "Beresheet" took before it crashed into the surface of the moon in a failed landing attempt last week.
Second NASA Astronaut to Spend Nearly a Year in Space — For Science By Meghan Bartels NASA's next long-duration spaceflight mission has already begun, and doctors are excited about what it could teach them.
Stopping an Earth-Bound Asteroid in its Tracks (Op-Ed) By Cathy Plesko, Ph.D. Fortunately, we're getting to the point where we can see potentially hazardous objects coming — and maybe even do something about it.
Boom! Another Neutron-Star Crash Spotted By Mike Wall Astronomers have apparently spotted another epic neutron-star crash — and they didn't need gravitational waves to do it.
Asteroid Hunting Mission Releases 5th Year of Data By Meghan Bartels If the idea of an asteroid slamming into Earth keeps you up at night, spare a thought for a mission called NEOWISE, which reincarnated a former astrophysics spacecraft to hunt for nearby space rocks.
Here's How Scientists Turned the World Into a Telescope (to See a Black Hole) By Meghan Bartels It took eight telescopes across the planet a week to produce the black hole image that stunned the world last week, but it took scientists much longer to teach those instruments to work together.
Did NASA Experiment Survive Israeli Moon Lander's Crash? By Leonard David A NASA piggyback experiment may have survived the April 11 crash of Israel's Beresheet moon lander, experts said.
Physicists Think You Could Be Rescued from a Black Hole — But Don't Risk It By Rafi Letzter Researchers have developed a new, unspeakably dangerous, and incredibly slow method of crossing the universe. It involves wormholes linking special black holes that probably don't exist.
Tiny Robots, Wearable Tech and More Weird Science Will Launch to Space Station Wednesday By Chelsea Gohd Two little robots, wearable tech and more weird science will launch to the International Space Station in a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft.
The First Known Interstellar Meteor May Have Hit Earth in 2014 By Charles Q. Choi The first meteor to hit Earth from interstellar space — and the second observed interstellar visitor overall — may have just been discovered, a new study finds.
Discovery! 3rd Planet Found in Two-Star 'Tatooine' Star System By Mike Wall A third world lurks in the two-star Kepler-47 system, and it's bigger than its two previously known siblings, a new study reports.
Rare Comet Fragment Found Inside Rocky Meteorite By Elizabeth Howell Researchers have found a piece of a comet — an object made up of ice and dust — inside of a space rock known as a stony meteorite.
NASA's TESS Exoplanet Mission Finds 1st Earth-Size Alien World By Mike Wall The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite spotted the planet, as well as a weird "sub-Neptune" world, circling the star HD 21749, which lies about 53 light-years from Earth.
The Moon Loses Water When Meteoroids Smack the Lunar Surface By Charles Q. Choi Meteoroid impacts regularly liberate puffs of water vapor from the moon, suggesting that minuscule amounts of water may lurk just under the entire lunar surface, a new study finds.
