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Science / Space

Is mining asteroids the next space frontier?

To the Asteroids and Beyond

A group of big-name tech billionaires wants to open up a new frontier in space—mining space rocks

The Golden Record consists of 115 analog-encoded photographs, greetings in 55 languages, a 12-minute montage of sounds on Earth and 90 minutes of music.

What Is on Voyager’s Golden Record?

From a whale song to a kiss, the time capsule sent into space in 1977 had some interesting contents

Monday's solar eruption at its peak moment

Picture of the Week: A Spectacular Solar Eruption

Earlier this week, a NASA telescope captured one of the most stunning solar flares in years

A selection of a new image of distant galaxies in the COSMOS field. Click to see the whole view.

Picture of the Week: A Deep View of the Universe

A new survey of a slice of the distant reaches of the universe reveals 200,000 galaxies

The distinct plumes of water and other organic compounds on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

NASA Spacecraft Samples a Snowing Moon

Saturn’s Enceladus is spurting water vapor, organic material and salt—a microbe-friendly composition

A medium-size solar flare with a coronal mass ejection, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on June 7, 2011

Could The Sun Set Off The Next Big Natural Disaster?

A new study finds that a strong solar storm could disable satellites for a decade

After decades of space exploration, there are now more than 500,000 pieces of artificial debris greater than half an inch in size.

Space Garbage: The Dark Cloud Above

A mass of debris from satellites and space missions is orbiting our planet—and it may be growing all the time

The C/2011 N3 comet is caught on a coronagraph, an image that blocks out the sun to reveal its corona.

A Comet’s Death Caught on Camera

Comets dive into the sun frequently, but previous ones had been too small and dim to be seen against the glaring backdrop

Could the Death Star Destroy a Planet?

Students in England concluded that the Star Wars space station could easily have destroyed an Earth-like planet

Mauna Loa (as seen from nearby Mauna Kea) is tall enough to have snow, at least when the volcano isn't erupting

The Tallest Mountains in the Solar System

Mount Everest is a just a peewee when compared with such giants as Olympus Mons on Mars

A composite image of S106, from the Hubble Space Telescope and Japan's Subaru Telescope

A Holiday Angel Among the Stars

The star-forming region Sharpless 2-106 bears a certain resemblance, particularly during this time of year

If you don't want to show an misformed Moon on a Christmas card, a full moon is a safe option

That Moon On Your Christmas Card

An astronomer finds that depictions of the Moon on Christmas cards, wrapping paper and books is often wrong

In this image from December 15, 2011, Comet Lovejoy appeared to be headed towards sure destruction in a collision with the Sun

A Comet’s Close Call

Scientists predicted that Comet Lovejoy would collide with the Sun

A lunar eclipse turns the moon reddish brown

How to Measure the Moon this Weekend

The people of Byzantium viewed a lunar eclipse as a bad omen, but today it’s just another time to do science

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The Latest Destination for Human Spaceflight

The latest proposed destination for human space missions illustrates the essential hollowness of the current direction of our civil space program

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Pollster George Gallup Jr. Looks to the Year 2000

Technicans work on the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity

Curious About Curiosity? What to Read on the Mars Science Laboratory

The traveling science laboratory launched successfully on Saturday and is scheduled to touch down on the red planet in August 2012

An artist's conception of the star LkCa 15 and the nearby protoplanet

A Planet Spotted As It Begins To Form

Scientists using the Keck telescope in Hawaii have found what may be a protoplanet, the youngest planet ever found

The Very Large Array in New Mexico

Name That Telescope

The Very Large Array needs a new, more exciting name

We no longer think of the stars as points of light on the tapestry of the night but now know that they're burning balls of gas billions of miles away in the black expanse of space.

Readers Respond: Why I Like Science

Science is the partner of art and the quest for truth

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