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Outer Space

Artist's illustration of PTScientist's Audi Quattro Lunar Rover visiting NASA's 1972 rover.

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4G Coverage Bound for the Moon in 2019

A private moon mission scheduled for next year will use an ultra-compact network to beam back live images of the lunar surface

Nicknamed the Hand of God, this pulsar wind nebula is powered by a pulsar: the leftover, dense core of a star that blew up in a supernova explosion. Before astronomers had any idea what they were, Jocelyn Bell Burnell found the signal of a pulsar in her telescope data in 1967.

Women Who Shaped History

Fifty Years Ago, a Grad Student’s Discovery Changed the Course of Astrophysics

By identifying the first pulsars, Jocelyn Bell Burnell set the stage for discoveries in black holes and gravitational waves

If you look closely at the lower right of galaxy NGC 613, the baby supernova pops into existence at the end of one of the galaxy's spiral arms.

New Research

Amateur Astronomer Captures Supernova’s First Winks of Light

Scientists say the chances were less than one in a million

SpaceX launches it's first re-used Falcon 9 rocket

Five Things to Know About SpaceX’s First Internet Satellite Launch

Along with an earth-observing satellite, the company will be testing two of a planned 12,000 internet satellites

Fragments of Famed ‘UFO’ Discovered in Archives of London Museum

Though experts deemed it a hoax, the ‘Silpho Saucer’ created a sensation when it was discovered in the 1950s

KBO 2012 HZ84 (left) and 2012 HE85 (right)

Cool Finds

New Horizons Snaps Farthest Image Ever Taken From Earth

Drifting 3.79 billion miles from home, the NASA probe took pictures of two Kuiper Belt objects

Is SpaceX Being Environmentally Responsible?

Falcon Heavy’s flashy space car may not have been the best idea—for Mars

Falcon Heavy awaiting launch at the Kennedy Space Center

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Watch SpaceX’s Successful Launch of Their Falcon Heavy Rocket

After seven years of designing and tinkering, the most powerful rocket in the world hurtled into space

Researchers estimate more than a trillion planets could exist in the elliptical galaxy at the center of this image.

New Research

Astronomers Spot Signs of Planets Outside the Milky Way

Researchers estimate that more than a trillion planets may lurk beyond our galaxy’s bounds

Reports of weird, wondrous, and worrying objects in the skies date to ancient times.

How UFO Reports Change With the Technology of the Times

Fears of Zeppelins, rockets and drones have replaced the “celestial wonders” of ancient times

The most detailed image ever taken of Lupus 3, a dense cloud of gas and dust that collapses to create new stars. This image is a compilation of data from the VLT Survey Telescope and the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope.

Dark Nebula Hides a Brilliant Streak of Baby Stars

South American observatory captures most detailed peek yet at Lupus Clouds stellar nursery

The IMAGE satellite

Cool Finds

Amateur Astronomer Finds Long-Lost NASA Satellite

The hobbyist was in search of the lost Zuma satellite when he spotted IMAGE, which went offline in 2005

The moon turned blood red when the moon passed through Earth's shadow on September 28, 2015.

Don’t Miss This Celestial Triplet: a Blue Moon, Supermoon and Lunar Eclipse

January’s second full moon will appear slightly larger during its blood-red lunar eclipse

This sphere is now spinning miles above Earth's surface. You can see it with a naked eye glinting across the night sky.

Rocket Lab Launched This Glittery Sphere Into Orbit

The sphere reflects so much sunlight it can be seen from Earth with the naked eye

Astronomer Todd Slisher unfolds tin-foil to reveal a piece of stony-iron meteorite during a press conference, Friday, January 19, 2018, at the Longway Planetarium in Flint, Michigan.

Meteorite Hunters Recover Fragments of Fireball That Exploded Over Michigan

Amateurs and professionals comb snowy landscapes for shards of the exploded meteor

Galaxy SPT0615-JD

Cool Finds

Behold Hubble’s Best Image of a Distant Galaxy Yet

The galaxy is roughly 13.3 billion light years away, and formed just 500 million years after the universe began

Meteor Explodes With a Brilliant Flash Over Michigan

The blast caused shook the ground and likely scattered small hunks of space rock in the region

The Orion Nebula

Cool Finds

Take a Breathtaking Trip Through the Orion Nebula in NASA’s New Video

Combining visible and infrared imagery, the new video takes viewers deep into the star nursery

A cross-section of underground ice is exposed at the steep slope that appears bright blue in this enhanced-color view from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Huge Deposits of Ice Found Just Beneath Mars’ Surface

Erosion has exposed eight sites of enormous quantities of water ice

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What Went Wrong With the Launch of the Secretive Zuma Satellite?

Not all is well for the classified Zuma satellite launched from Florida on Sunday

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