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Outer Space

China announced plans for landing humans on the moon with a crewed spacecraft and lunar lander. At the left, a model of the Lanyue lander is seen at the National Museum of China.

China Announces a Plan to Put Astronauts on the Moon by 2030, Revealing Details of Four Upcoming Missions

The country intends to launch three uncrewed test missions followed by a human lunar landing within the next few years. NASA hopes to send humans to the moon in 2028, though some experts have expressed doubt about that timeline

Over the past couple of years, Swift had been falling out of orbit faster than expected.

After Observing the Sky for 22 Years, a Beloved NASA Space Telescope Is Expected to Meet a Fiery Death This Week

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory launched in 2004 and detected thousands of astrophysical phenomena, leading to some huge discoveries. Earlier this year, experts attempted a first-of-its-kind rescue mission to save the falling telescope, but it failed

Teghaza 001 was discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2022.

This Rosy Stone Spotted in the Sahara Turned Out to Be a 4.1-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite From Mars, One of the Oldest Ever Found

Martian samples this old are extremely rare and offer clues about the Red Planet’s youth. This meteorite further hints that our celestial neighbor was once a watery world, suggesting it could’ve had the conditions to host life

The entrance to "At Home in Space" at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

What Can Space Offer Humanity? In Pursuit of the Answer, Astronauts Have Been Making a Home in Microgravity for Decades

In a new gallery called “At Home in Space,” the National Air and Space Museum shows how humans have tackled risky and arduous missions to push the boundaries of scientific discovery and exploration

Caspar David Friedrich’s The Evening Star is noteworthy for its Romantic sweep—and for the elusiveness of the stellar body (Venus) in its title. 

How Astronomers and Art Historians Are Working Together to Identify the Inspiration Behind Famous Works of Art

Researchers study paintings and literature to uncover untold history of the works, sometimes finding themselves trying to discern celestial bodies from dust

The farmer who found the object suspects it had been there for about six weeks.

This 11-Foot-Wide, Bowl-Shaped Object Was Found in a Minnesota Cornfield. Experts Suspect It’s a Stray Rocket Part

The mysterious, shiny object has not been conclusively identified, but it might be space junk from a rocket built by the Chinese company LandSpace and launched on September 15. Metal pieces were also recently found in Borneo, believed to be shed by a different LandSpace rocket

An artistic rendering of ClearSpace U.K.'s planned spacecraft

The United Kingdom Is Launching Giant Claws Into Orbit to Clean Up Space Junk. You Can Help Name the First-of-Its-Kind Mission

The spacecraft is designed to drag two dead satellites into Earth’s atmosphere, where they are expected to disintegrate. The mission is slated to launch in 2029 and be completed by 2032

The team pinpointed the FRB's host galaxy thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. 

Astronomers Detect the Oldest Known Fast Radio Burst, Spewed From an Ancient Galaxy Just Three Billion Years After the Big Bang

The universe formed 13.8 billion years ago, so this far-traveled burst of radio waves can help scientists learn more about the early cosmos. However, researchers still aren’t sure what produces these strange flashes

An artist's impression of white dwarf J1330+6435, which might appear ghostly green because of certain elements in its dense atmosphere

In a First, Astronomers Identify a Star That Might Glow Green. New Research Highlights the Strange Hues White Dwarfs Can Take on

White dwarf stars are too far from Earth to be observed directly. So, scientists reconstructed how they’d look to human eyes based on the wavelengths of light they emit and found a colorful array of objects that might appear yellow, purple or pink

An artistic rendering of the MMX spacecraft next to the potato-shaped Martian moon Phobos

Scientists Don’t Know How Mars Acquired Its Two Moons. Japan Just Launched a Historic Space Mission That Will Fetch Samples to Find Out

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s spacecraft is expected to reach the Martian system in August 2027 and return samples from the moon Phobos to Earth in 2031

Jack Nicholson peering through an axed-in door in The Shining.

Stanley Kubrick’s Personal Archive Is Going Up for Auction, Including the Ax From ‘The Shining’ and the Star Child From ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

The legendary director’s on-set chair, annotated scripts and props give a glimpse into the meticulous moviemaking process behind films like “Full Metal Jacket” and “Eyes Wide Shut”

This artist’s concept shows the Beta Pictoris system, about 63 light-years away.

Researchers May Have Directly Glimpsed an Exoplanet’s Magnetic Field for the First Time, Building Hope of Peering Deeper Into Faraway Worlds

Radio signals emanating from Beta Pictoris b suggest that this young and massive exoplanet has a strong magnetic field and intense auroral show

An artistic concept of the second-generation planet orbiting the white dwarf HS 0209+0832

Like a Mythical Phoenix, This Planet May Have Risen From the Ashes of a Dead Star

The “second-generation” world, predicted from telescope data, could be the first known planet of its kind, and it may shed light on the future of our own solar system

Francis Halzen is a Belgian American physicist who studies neutrinos, sometimes called "ghost particles," which come from space and rarely interact with ordinary matter.

Physicist Wins Nobel Prize for Developing a Massive, Ice-Embedded Observatory That Detects Ghostly Cosmic Particles

Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison led the effort to build the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. His work birthed the field of neutrino astronomy

The view from low-Earth orbit

Google Wants to Send Data Centers to Space—and Just Launched an Experimental Satellite to Test Whether Its Ambitious Plan Will Work

The tech giant aims to use the near-constant sunlight available in low-Earth orbit to power data centers. The experimental satellite, launched October 1, holds four computer chips that can run Google’s Gemini A.I. for 15 minutes at a time

Starship orbited Earth twice, although it was supposed to circle the planet six times.

SpaceX’s Giant Starship Rocket Reached Earth Orbit on Its First Try, but Engine Problems Forced It to Return to the Planet Early

Two aerospace companies are competing to create the lunar lander NASA uses when it returns humans to the moon’s surface. But to reach our lunar companion, a spacecraft will first have to get to Earth orbit

Enceladus is one of Saturn's 293 known moons.

Could Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Host Alien Life? Earth Microbes Can Live in Its Simulated Environment, Boosting Its Potential Habitability

Enceladus is covered in ice, but that layer might hide a subsurface ocean. Researchers have long wondered if the salty body of water has the right conditions to host life, and now, a team suggests that an Earthly, heat-loving organism could thrive there

Galaxy NGC 1386, which hosts an active supermassive black hole that was analyzed in a new study

Active Supermassive Black Holes May Be Engines of Star Formation, Not Just Destruction, Study Suggests

Scientists mapped out the structure of nine bright cores of galaxies located near the Milky Way and revealed common patterns that could shed light on how the universe evolved

If a theoretical dark matter particle interacts with liquid xenon in an underground tank, these light sensors should detect the resulting flash of light. 

Scientists May Have Finally Detected a Hint of Dark Matter, the Mysterious, Invisible Stuff That Holds the Universe Together

A South Dakota-based instrument built to detect theoretical dark matter particles has sensed a particle interaction that’s difficult to explain with known phenomena. But more data is needed to confirm that the strange substance—which scientists have never directly observed—is, indeed, the culprit

Man on the Moon (Portrait of an Astronaut), Norman Rockwell, oil on canvas, 1967

To Capture the Beauty and Wonder of Flight, These Celebrated Artists Created Spectacular Visions of Astronauts, Aviators, Rocket Launches and the Moon

At the National Air and Space Museum, a recently opened gallery space features artworks by Norman Rockwell, Alma Thomas, Francisco Goya and other luminaries

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