Outer Space

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

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

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

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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

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

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

NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, currently descending towards earth.

Your Guide to the Falling Satellite

Hear from an Air and Space Museum expert on what to expect from tonight's satellite impact

Did two sub-moons collide to form our Moon?

Splat! Two Moons over Miami?

An artist's concept of what planet TrES-2b might look like

Faraway Planet is Blackest Yet Found

The planet, TrES-2b, is a gas giant about the size of Jupiter. But that's where the similarities end

Wernher von Braun would come to personify NASA's space exploration program.

Wernher von Braun's V-2 Rocket

Although the Nazi "vengeance weapon" was a wartime failure, it ushered in the space age

Astronaut Alan Shepard in his pressure suit, for the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) flight, the first American manned space flight. On May 5, 1961, Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 mission and became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space.

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard Went to Outer Space and Came Home

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first American in space

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Space Artist Robert McCall Dies at 90

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Hubble Takes New Pluto Pics

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Moving Beyond Earth Opens at Air and Space

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Picture of the Week—The Kappa Crucis Cluster, a.k.a. the "Jewel Box"

The Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille was the first to find this cluster of stars in 1751 while on an astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope

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Thursday News Roundup — Black Holes, Traveling to Titan, and More Spiders

The robotic Cassini spacecraft which is now orbiting Saturn looked back toward the eclipsed Sun and saw a view unlike any other.

Fantastic Photos of our Solar System

In the past decade, extraordinary space missions have found water on Mars, magnetic storms on Mercury and volcanoes on the moons of Saturn

Hubble Telescope Gets Back to Work

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"The Camera that Saved Hubble" Coming to the Smithsonian

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