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A data visualization showing the mountainous area west of Nobile Crater and the smaller craters that litter its rim at the moon’s south pole. The Nobile region — the landing site for NASA’s ice-hunting VIPER rover — features areas permanently covered in shadow as well as areas that are bathed in sunlight most of the time.

NASA unveils landing site on the moon for ice-hunting VIPER rover

By Mike Wall

The ice-hunting Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land just west of Nobile Crater, which sits near the moon's south pole, NASA officials announced today (Sept. 20).

Fireworks on Sept. 19, 2021, mark the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, in Wuxi, China.

What is the Moon Festival? A scholar of Chinese religions explains.

By Mario Poceski

With the arrival of September and hints of cooler temperatures also comes one of most important traditional festivals in the Chinese calendar.

Artist's illustration of a Mars with Earth-like surface water. The Red Planet was a wet world in the ancient past.

Mars was always too small to hold onto its oceans, rivers and lakes

By Mike Wall

Mars was doomed to desiccation by its small size, a new study suggests.

How frequent is the full Harvest Moon?

By Joe Rao

The Harvest Moon is always the full moon closest to the time of the autumnal equinox.

Special relativity equation (E=mc^2) on a chalkboard.

Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity

By Vicky Stein

Einstein's paper on special relativity revolutionized light, light speed, matter and energy with a deceptively simple equation.

The Inspiration4 crew posing inside the Dragon Crew cupola against the backdrop of Earth.

Pictures from space! Our image of the day

By Space.com Staff

Inspiration4 crew members posed for this group selfie in front of the dome window of their Dragon Crew capsule during their historic three-day all-civilian space trip.

An artist's depiction of the VIPER rover at work on the lunar surface.

NASA to reveal moon landing site for ice-lunar rover today. Here's how to follow it live.

By Elizabeth Howell

NASA will hold a press conference Monday as part of its Artemis program.

Gravitational waves are giant ripples in the fabric of space-time.

New gravitational wave detector picks up possible signal from the beginning of time

By Adam Mann

Physicists turned on a new type of gravitational-wave sensor and saw two intriguing results, but they aren't yet ready to claim a discovery.

A view of Centaurus A, which includes an active galactic nucleus at its heart.

Scientists watch a galaxy's supermassive black hole shoot out the galaxy's gas

By Rahul Rao

There comes a time in every galaxy's life, astronomers think, when the galaxy ejects a large part of its gas, but scientists aren't certain what drives this "mid-life crisis."

Astrophotographer Anthony Lynch sent in this photo of the Harvest Moon, September 2013, taken at Phoenix Park in Dublin, Ireland.

Harvest Moon 2021: When and how to see September's full moon

By Jesse Emspak

The full moon of September 2021 also carries the title of the Harvest Moon for those living in the Northern Hemisphere.

An artist's depiction of a swirling vortex beam.

1st 'atom tornado' created from swirling vortex of helium atoms

By Ben Turner

Physicists have created the first-ever atomic vortex beam — a swirling tornado of atoms and molecules with mysterious properties that have yet to be understood.

Artist's impression of Kuiper Belt objects.

The top space stories of the week!

By Doris Elin Urrutia

These are the top space stories this week from Space.com.

The time crystal was created inside Google's Sycamore chip, which is kept cool inside their quantum cryostat.

Otherworldly 'time crystal' made inside Google quantum computer could change physics forever

By Ben Turner

The crystals neatly sidestep some of physics' most iron-clad laws.

Inspiration4 lifted off successfully on Sept. 15.

Space Chat! Inspiration4 launches to orbit, Chinese astronauts land back on Earth and so much more

By Chelsea Gohd

Today (Sept. 17), Space Chat will explore what's new in space, including the successful launch of Inspiration4, the landing of Chinese astronauts back on Earth, some strange science and so much more!

An artist's depiction of planets forming from the disk around the young star GM Aurigae.

Scientists chip away at secrets of planet formation, origin of life in bevy of new research

By Meghan Bartels

A whopping 20 new scientific papers use data gathered by a host of radio dishes perched high in the Chilean desert to tease apart the mysteries of how planets form.

Craters in Mars' Arabia Terra filled with layered rock as seen by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Ancient Mars was rocked by violent, climate-changing volcanic eruptions

By Tereza Pultarova

Volcanic super eruptions regularly tore up the surface of Mars billions of years ago, altering the planet's climate for decades and creating scars that are still visible today.

The Chang'e 5 return capsule at its landing site in Inner Mongolia, China, on Dec. 17, 2020.

China moon rock studies include fusion energy analysis, volcanic history

By Andrew Jones

Several science institutions in China are now studying rocks collected from the moon by the Chang'e 5 mission for research that includes evaluating the material as a potential source of fusion power.

A Hubble Space Telescope image of AG Carinae, an unstable star that is on the brink of exploding.

900-year-old Chinese supernova mystery points to strange nebula