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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope was fully assembled for the first time in August 2019.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope launch delayed to December

By Meghan Bartels

NASA's long-awaited and high-powered James Webb Space Telescope won't begin observations this year after NASA and its counterpart the European Space Agency (ESA) announced another launch delay.

Radar images of the sizable asteroid 2016 AJ193 marked the 1,001st such object scientists have observed using the technique.

Astronomers hunting asteroids with radar surpass 1,000th space rock detection

By Meghan Bartels

The most powerful tool for scientists studying asteroids in the neighborhood around Earth is planetary radar, a technique astronomers have just used on their 1,001st asteroid to date.

Ingenuity flew for the 13th time on Sept. 4, 2021 on Mars.

Mars helicopter Ingenuity flies low and slow on lucky flight 13

By Chelsea Gohd

Number 13 was good luck for NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity, as the tenacious little craft seamlessly completed its 13th flight on the Red Planet on Saturday (Sept. 4).

An image taken by the Dark Energy Survey shows Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein in October 2017.

The 'megacomet' Bernardinelli-Bernstein is the find of a decade. Here's the discovery explained.

By Meghan Bartels

Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein will be a spectacle for more than a decade to come, even though its discovery was a matter of luck.

This sealed titanium sampling tube contains the first sample ever collected by NASA's Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. The photo was captured by Perseverance's Sampling and Caching System Camera, or CacheCam.

Perseverance rover seals up 1st Mars sample for future return to Earth

By Mike Wall

It's official: NASA's Perseverance rover has collected its first-ever Mars sample.

sun

Curious Kids: Why is the sun's atmosphere hotter than its surface?

By Hannah Schunker, David Pontin

The truth of the matter is — we don't know!

planets comets round shape

I've always wondered: Why are the stars, planets and moons round, when comets and asteroids aren’t?

By Jonti Horner

This is a fantastic question Lionel, and a really good observation!

An image of the galaxy Centaurus A captured by the Dark Energy Camera based in Chile.

Stunning image shows dark tendrils masking giant Centaurus A galaxy near Earth

By Meghan Bartels

Scientists have captured a stunning new image of a massive galaxy ringed by dust filaments.

For centuries, sailors have told tales of huge swaths of ocean glowing on dark nights.

Scientists are using new satellite tech to find glow-in-the-dark milky seas of maritime lore

By Steven D. Miller

For centuries, sailors have been reporting strange encounters like this one.

The GeoEye-1 satellite captured this image of flooding in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on Sept. 2, 2021.

Satellite images show extreme flooding in New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida

By Chelsea Gohd

The epic storm that swept across the eastern United States this week hit New Jersey so hard that satellites saw the damage from space.

An artist's illustration of a futuristic spaceship orbiting Earth. The Chinese proposal aims to look into the feasibility of building mega spaceships that are over half a mile long.

China wants to build a mega spaceship that’s nearly a mile long

By Edd Gent

A Chinese science proposal plans to study how to get a giant spacecraft into space.

The world's largest Martian meteorite, Taoudenni 002.

World's largest Martian meteorite goes on display

By Harry Baker

The largest piece of Martian rock on Earth, weighing around 32 pounds, has gone on display for the first time, at a museum in Maine.

An artist's concept of a protoplanetary disk.

Dense 'hot spots' on a young star reveal what Earth's sun may have looked in its infancy

By Charles Q. Choi

Astronomers may have captured the best view yet of matter colliding with the surface of a young star, findings that may shed light on what the sun looked like in its youth.

This Hubble Space Telescope view shows the star cluster NGC 346 at the center of a brilliant star-forming region inside the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way about 210,000 light-years away.

Hubble telescope spies brilliant star cluster in Milky Way's neighbor galaxy

By Rahul Rao

Hubble peers deep to see newborn stars in action.

This image, captured by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover on Sept. 1, 2021, shows a cored sample in one of the robot's sampling tubes. Mission team members think the sample was retained but will take a few more photos to make sure.

NASA's Perseverance rover drills 1st Mars rock sample for an (eventual) return to Earth

By Mike Wall

Perseverance has likely snagged its first-ever Red Planet sample, socking away a drilled-out core of a rock dubbed "Rochette."

This artist’s illustration shows a compact object (a black hole or neutron star) at the core of its massive stellar companion. Rapid accretion onto the compact object has caused it to form an accretion disk and launch a pair of jets at nearly the speed of light. Those jets have tunneled through the star, which is about to explode in a supernova due to the enormous amount of energy released. In the next few years, the exploded stellar material will plow its way through a dense torus of stellar material ejected by the compact object during its previous centuries of inspiral toward the core, creating a luminous radio afterglow.

Star-smash supernova? New type of stellar explosion possibly seen

By Charles Q. Choi

Astronomers have uncovered evidence of explosions triggered by dead stars ramming into live stars, possible proof of a new type of supernova, a new study finds.

An artist's impression of dark matter in the beginning of the universe.

Is dark matter made of 'Fermi balls' forged in the Big Bang?

By Paul Sutter

A new theory suggests dark matter may have come from quantum bags that got squished together in the early universe.

Juno spacecraft over Jupiter's great red spot. Jupiter is a gas giant, but could a spacecraft pass through a gas planet?

Could a spaceship fly through a gas giant like Jupiter?

By JoAnna Wendel

These planets are mostly made of gas, but a spaceship would have a rough time trying to get through a giant planet like Jupiter or Saturn.

An artist's depiction of a brown dwarf.

Strange brown dwarf 'The Accident' hints at possible treasure trove of cosmic anomalies

By Samantha Mathewson

A citizen scientist's lucky discovery of an eccentric brown dwarf illustrates the tantalizing borderline between stars and planets.

An image of the asteroid Vesta shows large impact basins and troughs.

The mysterious troughs on giant asteroid Vesta keep puzzling scientists

By Meghan Bartels

Vesta, a massive world in the solar system's asteroid belt, sports two huge trough features that have long puzzled scientists, and it doesn't look like the mystery will be solved anytime soon.