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Outer Space

Winners at last year's Google Science Fair

Google Thinks These 20 Teenagers Could Change Our World for the Better

These kids from around the globe have created innovative new technologies, from malaria-testing apps to water-saving agriculture systems

This crater with curious ridges in its center is a possible future site for exploration

Cool Finds

Explore Far Out Views From Mars’ Surface With Over 1,000 New Photos

It’s the Martian “magic hour”

A long-exposure of Perseids taken in August 2004.

Space Hub

The Perseid Meteor Shower Looks Even More Beautiful When You Know Where It Comes From

Each streak across the sky is a fragment of the original material of our solar system

NASA's Kepler spacecraft launched on March 6, 2009. Today, technology and international collaborations are democratizing the space race.

Space Hub

Opening the Space Race to the Entire World

A new era of collaboration and affordable technology has scientists across the globe sending spacecraft into outer space

Cool Finds

Look Up! The Perseid Meteor Shower Is Going to Be a Doozy This Year

The number of shooting stars could double this year

In NASA's new "Mars Rover" game, players drive a rover through rough Martian terrain, challenging themselves to navigate and balance the rover.

Cool Finds

Take a Spin Around Mars in NASA’s New Rover Game

Tour the Red Planet without the risk of a multi-million dollar crash

This artist's conception shows a dim red dwarf surrounded by three planets. To hold life at their surface, red dwarf planets must orbit close to their star, putting them in the line of fire from dangerous flares.

Think Big

Why the Universe Is Becoming More Habitable

The universe is far more welcoming to life today than it was when microbes on Earth arose—and will only grow more so

A view from a camera onboard the Icarus craft as it reaches the stratosphere.

Trending Today

How Engineers Got a Vinyl Record to Play in the Stratosphere

Fittingly, it took notes from Carl Sagan

Must all molecules of life be handed?

Think Big

Must the Molecules of Life Always be Left-Handed or Right-Handed?

They are on Earth, but life on other planets could play by different rules

An image of a nebula used in "The Hubble Cantata."

Cool Finds

The Cosmos Sings in This Fusion of Astrophysics and Music

The Hubble Cantata brings the stars down to earth

A false-color image of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter from Voyager 1. The white oval storm directly below the Great Red Spot has approximately the same diameter as the Earth.

New Research

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Also Red Hot

The giant storm pipes out temperatures over 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit

Data from the Viking biology experiments, which is stored on microfilm, has to be accessed using a microfilm reader.

Cool Finds

NASA Is Finally Digitizing the Viking Mission’s 40-Year-Old Data

No more microfilm

A 3D view of the console of the Apollo 11 "Columbia" command module.

Cool Finds

Explore the Apollo 11 Command Module in 3D

For the first time, you can peek inside the craft that enabled “one giant leap for mankind”

An artist's conception of four of the new planets, orbiting a single dwarf star. These small, rocky worlds are far closer to their star than Mercury is to our sun, but the star is smaller and cooler than our own.

New Research

Kepler Just Found 104 New Planets Outside of Our Solar System

Is anyone home?

Visitors take a guided tour of the Barringer Meteorite Crater in northern Arizona.

American South

Big Boom: The Best Places to See Meteorite Impact Craters

Ancient impacts changed landscapes and perhaps even the course of evolution—here’s where to see the coolest craters this summer

An artist's illustration of the Tiangong-1 space lab in orbit.

Trending Today

No, China’s Tiangong-1 Will Not “Rain Molten Metal Down Onto Earth”

It’s not spiraling out of control, and even if it was, it wouldn’t enter the atmosphere until 2017

This spectacular image of the Orion Nebula star-formation region was obtained from multiple exposures using the HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

New Research

Breathtaking New Images Capture Failed Stars and Planet-Sized Objects Inside the Orion Nebula

It’s the deepest look into the nebula ever seen before

An astrophysicist makes the case that it might be worthwhile to revisit the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 to safeguard the practice of science on the lunar surface.

Can There Be Real Estate on the Moon?

A Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist thinks a legal crisis is waiting for us on the surface of the moon.

Apollo 11 on the launchpad

Cool Finds

The Code That Sent Apollo 11 to the Moon Just Resurfaced Online and Is Chock-Full of Jokes

Published on GitHub, the array of in-jokes, pop culture and Shakespeare asides in the comments on the code show the human side of the project

Jupiter's moon, Europa, is one of the most promising candidates for life elsewhere in the solar system.

Cool Finds

Juno Will Eventually Go Up in Flames to Protect Theoretical Alien Life

Juno, we hardly knew you

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