Outer Space

Mercury as seen by Messenger

Today The Messenger Spacecraft Will Crash Into Mercury

After years of exciting observations and stunning pictures of Mercury, the spacecraft has run out of fuel

An artist's interpretation of the Gaia spacecraft -- mistaken for a small moon this week

The Time a Space Observatory Was Mistaken for a Second Moon

For 13 hours, the space observatory Gaia was misidentified as a natural satellite orbiting Earth

A shuttle astronaut's view of the International Space Station.

To Get Rid of Space Junk, Shoot It Down With Lasers

Proposals to send debris-targeting craft into orbit are piling up, and one mission may soon start test firing from the space station

The Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope Has Been In Space for 25 Years, Here's What it Has Seen

The telescope has sent back some real beauties

An early draft of the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Personal Writings of Arthur C. Clarke Reveal the Evolution of "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Works donated from the author's archives in Sri Lanka include letters to Kubrick and an early draft of his most famous novel

Extreme Makeover: ISS Edition

How to give the International Space Station a little bit more room

Four of the astronauts who will be conducting spacewalks train at the Kennedy Space Center.

Behind the Scenes of the Last Mission to Repair the Hubble Space Telescope

Photographer Michael Soluri shares an intimate look at the team that saved the iconic observatory

An illustration of some of the debris in low Earth orbit

Scientists Want to Use Lasers to Shoot Down Space Junk

The idea sounds farfetched, but it may be better than previous solutions

A false-color image of Ceres mimics what human eyes would see

Dawn Spacecraft Sends First Color Images of Ceres

Red and blue tell the tale of a dwarf planet covered in rock and ice

Meet the First Donut That Went to Space

A pair of Swedish brothers launched a tasty pastry into the stratosphere—and filmed the entire ride

Mercury's Munch crater, as viewed by the MESSENGER probe.

The Messenger Probe Will Soon Crash Into Mercury

As NASA's probe runs out of propellant, it will crash into the planet’s surface at 8,750 MPH

Yum! A candy-colored view of the planet Mercury shows differences in its chemical makeup.

Earth May Have Become Magnetic After Eating a Mercury-Like Object

Swallowing a sulfur-rich protoplanet could help explain two lingering mysteries in the story of Earth's formation

The blobs, colored to show motion, are G2 as it approaches and passes the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy

Escape From the Black Hole’s Abyss!

An object called G2—previously believed to be a gas cloud—narrowly slipped from the clutches of a supermassive black hole

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An Einstein Ring and an Asteroid "Dart" Are Among These Space Stunners

A lensed galaxy and a mission to manipulate a space rock feature among our picks for this week's best space images

When young planets collide.

The Moon Was Formed in a Smashup Between Earth and a Near Twin

But solving one puzzle of lunar origins has raised another linked to the abundances of tungsten in the primordial bodies

Could NASA Stop on the Moon on the Way to Mars?

NASA's chief of human exploration thinks we'll need a pit stop en route to the fiery planet

An Easter Typhoon and Galactic Ghosts Are Among These Spacey Visions

Astronauts spy a colossal eye and Hubble sees echoes of quasars past in our picks for the week's best space images

A Rocket Blessing and a Cubist Planet Are Among These Celestial Sights

Russia sends off the one-year crew and a Saturn probe gets artistic in our picks for this week's best space-related pictures

The Asteroid Redirect Vehicle gets ready to push off from the asteroid after grabbing a boulder in this artist’s interpretation

An Asteroid Boulder Will Be A Stepping Stone on the Journey to Mars

NASA announces details in its plan to capture an asteroid and bring it into lunar orbit

A Moon Landing in Virtual Reality, Bookniture and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Could a new material that uses static charge to stick to any surface spell doom for Post-it notes?

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