The US president, Donald Trump, has stuck to his plan to send humans back to the moon in the next five years, recently giving the project a US$1.6 billion shot in the arm. 

The Solar System might be a soggier place than we previously thought - even in the glacially cold reaches of the Kuiper Belt. There, dwarf planet Pluto could be harbouring liquid oceans under a shell of nitrogen ice.

Members of Congress grilled representatives from NASA today over the agency's failure to deliver a plan for getting back to the Moon within five years.

Most planets can exist for a long, long time, but they can't last forever. 

Going to space changes your brain. Astronauts who have spent months in microgravity have more liquid in their brains, which may affect their vision even after they get back home.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin announced its first lunar lander, Blue Moon, at a press conference today.

Extraterrestrial life, that familiar science-fiction trope, that kitschy fantasy, that CGI nightmare, has become a matter of serious discussion, a "risk factor", a "scenario".

The InSight lander seems to have been hit by one of Mars' famous dust devils, but don't worry--the NASA probe is just fine. If anything, the sudden blast of wind helped to clear off some annoying dust that had been collecting on the probe's solar panels. The passing wind vortex also produced some cool science.

NASA, FEMA, and other national and international agencies are once again gearing up for a hypothetical asteroid impact preparedness scenario. They hope to learn the best strategies for responding to a potential strike, starting from the moment a threatening asteroid is first detected by astronomers.

The company undoubtedly had a busy Easter weekend.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing and a significant turning point in world history. 

Hubble scientists like to honor the telescope's birthday with an annual release of 4/20-worthy space porn, and this year's pic is as stunning as ever. The image, in full below, offers an updated view of the Southern Crab Nebula.

A new analysis has found that Mercury has a solid inner core, just like Earth does. And Mercury's core is just about the same size as our own planet's.

 Researchers have developed a new, unspeakably dangerous, and incredibly slow method of crossing the universe. It involves wormholes linking special black holes that probably don't exist.

Scientists spotted a superflare larger than some of the hugest solar storms on record--from what seems to be a tiny, almost Jupiter-sized star.

Scientists have found a cometary building block in an unexpected place: deep inside a meteorite, according to a new paper.

The Beresheet probe crash-landed on the Moon earlier today, dashing Israel's hopes of becoming only the fourth country to land a functioning probe on the lunar surface.

Last year, various media outlets fumbled their reporting of genuinely interesting research from NASA, one that hoped to start figuring out what happens to our bodies if we live in space for long periods of time. The study was a meticulous comparison of then 50-year-old astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year aboard...

No one knew what a black hole looked like before today. Sure, we thought we knew, thanks to simulations and the now-famous black hole featured in the movie Interstellar.

Today, scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope released a picture that will go down in scientific history: the first-ever image of a black hole. But there's more to science than pretty pictures. Alongside the release, scientists dropped six papers documenting how they created the image and what they've already...

An extensive survey of bacteria and fungi on surfaces inside the International Space Station has revealed an astonishing number of microorganisms living among the astronauts--the health impacts of which aren't entirely clear.

Scientists have found lava lamp-like blobs up to 500 times larger than the Earth in the solar wind, in data from a pair of spacecraft that launched in the 1970s.

The Event Horizon Telescope, a network of telescopes on mission to observe supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, is set to release its first results in a public press conference next week.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Congressional committee on Tuesday that President Trump's accelerated timeline to put humans back on the Moon is within the space agency's capabilities, and that a revved-up lunar mission will improve the odds of American astronauts reaching Mars by 2033. For that to happen,...

NASA's Curiosity rover shook the science community six years ago when it apparently detected traces of methane--an important chemical linked to life--on Mars. Researchers failed to confirm these results in the years that followed, but that's now changed thanks to a re-analysis of data collected from orbit.

With its long, bright tail, this object bears an uncanny resemblance to a comet, but it's actually an active asteroid. New observations suggest the asteroid is spinning so quickly that it's starting to break down and crumble, in what is a relatively rare cosmological phenomenon.

During the final days of the legendary Cassini mission, the NASA spacecraft performed a series of ring-skimming orbits around Saturn, snapping unprecedented images of the gas giant's enigmatic ring moons. These photos and other data have now been analyzed by astronomers, shedding new light on these elusive objects and...

Astronauts on the International Space Station have completed 214 spacewalks in the past 21 years, but none have been all-women endeavors. So it was very exciting earlier this month when NASA publicized what was supposed to be the first all-female spacewalk in history. But just days before the planned walk, a spacesuit...

Speaking on behalf of President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence directed NASA to put American astronauts on the moon "within the next five years" at the fifth meeting of the National Space Council on Tuesday.

Astronomers have created a catalog of 1,822 nearby stars around which the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission might spot planets receiving Earth-like levels of starlight. This is a crucial step in humanity's search for an Earth-like, potentially habitable exoplanet.

Late last year, astronomers detected the sixth known dark vortex on Neptune. This time, however, scientists were able to chronicle the formation of this swirling storm over the course of several years, offering new insights into these enigmatic and ephemeral weather features.

Scientists have found evidence of an ancient solar "superflare" hidden in a meteorite that was first found in Kazakhstan in 1962, according to a new paper.

NASA scientists have released a boatload of data from OSIRIS-REx, the spacecraft orbiting the asteroid Bennu. There are lots of interesting results--and some potential unforeseen challenges when it comes to collecting a sample.

Scientists with the New Horizons mission gathered together in Texas yesterday to discuss the latest findings about MU69. This distant Kuiper Belt object--which bears a striking resemblance to a flattened snowman--is turning out to be even weirder than we imagined.

For years now, scientists have sounded the alarm about a potential nightmare for astronauts on the International Space Station: antibiotic-resistant superbugs that could be even more dangerous in space than they are on Earth. This week, research say they've found a way to better prevent such hardy bacteria from...

Nearly 25 years ago, the Pathfinder spacecraft explored a suspected floodplain on Mars. Unbeknownst to NASA at the time, the waters that long ago carved Pathfinder's landing site spilled out from a previously undocumented inland sea nearby, new research shows.

NASA may have declared its Opportunity rover lost, but we'll always have its data and bank of raw images. The mission team has now processed an incredible panorama from these files for your viewing pleasure. You can see it below and scroll around a larger version on the NASA press page here.

The Hubble Space Telescope has just released some spectacular new cosmic eye candy. This wild image shows NGC 6052, a pair of colliding galaxies 230 million light-years away.

Evidence of an unusually strong solar storm that hit Earth in 660 BCE has been detected in Greenland ice cores--a finding which shows we still have lots to learn about these disruptive events.

By combining data from the Hubble and Gaia space telescopes, an international team of astronomers has come up with the most accurate estimate yet of our galaxy's mass.

An air-to-air imaging technology developed by NASA has resulted in the first images ever taken of interacting shockwaves produced by in-flight supersonic jets. The new images, in addition to being beautiful, will help NASA design jets capable of producing gentle rumbles instead of loud sonic booms when breaking the...

On October 12, 2017, a 20-meter asteroid passed just 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) from Earth. For weeks, dozens of astronomers from labs around the world mobilized, measuring everything they could about the asteroid in preparation for an impact.

China's space agency plans to launch a probe to Mars next year, following its recent successful landing on the Moon's far side, according to a statement from one of the country's prominent space scientists.

The drilling instrument on NASA's Insight was put through its first test last week, but the inaugural digging session fell far short of expectations due to some potentially problematic rocks directly beneath the Mars lander.

This incredible image shows a pair of "nuclear superbubbles," one over 4,900 light-years across and the other over 3,500 light-years. They're emanating from the center of the galaxy NGC 3079, likely the result of a central black hole consuming matter and spewing it back out.

Welcome to AIstrology. With the help of research scientist Janelle Shane, we built a bot to generate monthly horoscopes. Each horoscope below is a prediction based on a wealth of predictions for each sign; a distillation of what the stars have in store for you this month.

Scientists report finding evidence for an ancient planet-wide groundwater system on Mars, according to a new study. The clues appeared in images taken by Mars orbiters.

By using the barren Atacama Desert in Chile as a stand-in for Mars, researchers have shown that it's possible to use an autonomous rover-mounted drill to detect life beneath a desolate surface. Encouragingly, the test resulted in the discovery of a resilient microorganism--exactly the kind of creature that could lurk...

Japan's Hayabusa2 probe touched down successfully on the Ryugu asteroid late last week, blasting its surface and--hopefully--collecting samples. A new image released by JAXA shows a distinctive smudge on the asteroid where the procedure took place, but the cause of the dark surface feature isn't immediately clear.

NASA has changed the name of a facility in Fairmont, West Virginia to the "Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility," in honor of the retired NASA mathematician.

Following our first good look at 2014 MU69 back in January, New Horizons has beamed back its crispest shots of the distant space object yet. The images have a resolution of resolution of roughly 110 feet per pixel, delivering on one of the mission's challenging goals for observing the object nicknamed Ultima Thule.

The Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft has completed one of its most exciting challenges yet: On Thursday evening, it touched down on the asteroid Ryugu, fired a tantalum bullet into the rocky surface, and ascended back into orbit around the tiny world, according to updates from the mission's English-language Twitter...

Dramatic dried-up river channels over a mile wide and 650 feet deep have been detected on Mars, showcasing how the Red Planet once hosted liquid water at its surface.

Scientists have discovered a nearby "stellar stream" containing thousands of stars spanning the southern sky. They made the discovery thanks to the recent release of data from the Gaia sky survey.

Earlier today, President Donald Trump signed a directive to create the Space Force, what will become the sixth branch of the U.S. military--but the new branch will be placed under the purview of the U.S. Air Force, rather than being a separate and autonomous branch, as the president had initially hoped.

The appearance of a massive white cap on Uranus may seem alarming, but as planetary scientists are learning, this is what a prolonged summer looks like on the remote ice giant.

A pair of small satellites that joined the InSight mission on its way to Mars haven't been heard from in over a month--but the experimental mission is still an important success for NASA.