The sun has delivered some wild looks recently. NASA showed off a goofy sun “smile” from October, and now the European Space Agency is pointing out a solar “snake” seen by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. A video shows the solar snake in acti…
In May 2020, the US Space Force launched its X-37B space plane into orbit. On Nov. 12 — 908 days later — it landed back on Earth, generating sonic booms over Florida. That’s a remarkable stretch of time for the uncrewed, reusable spacecraft to spe…
On Jan. 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger experienced a malfunction shortly after liftoff that cost the lives of the seven crew members on board. Now, a piece of the doomed spacecraft has been found on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida.&…
Northrop Grumman’s NG-18 Cygnus space freighter is loaded up with 4 tons of hardware, crew supplies and research equipment destined for the International Space Station. It launched from Virginia on Monday morning, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing a…
Getting back to the moon is tough. NASA plans to send its uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon and bring it back safely. But first it has to get off this rock, an event NASA hopes will happen Nov. 14. Early on Friday morning, the massive Space…
In modern times, ultraviolet lights are used to illuminate Grateful Dead posters, sanitize spaces and teach us more about animals (did you know wombats glow under UV?). UV light is now revealing some very ancient secrets by highlighting hidden patte…
On a trick-or-treat scale for potentially hazardous space objects, newly discovered asteroid 2022 RM4 is a treat. The sneaky cosmic rock is relatively large and will come in for a safe but close flyby of Earth on Nov. 1, just missing Halloween by a …
One thing I didn’t expect to do this week was laugh my head off at a video of a lemur picking its nose. But here we are. Even if you’re grossed out, it’s worth sticking around to learn why scientists were so shocked over the lemur’s nose-picking pro…
It seems our local star is taking the “sun is smiling down on us” phrase literally. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory snapped a portrait of the sun on Wednesday that makes it look like it has two dark eyes, a swirling round nose and a happy little s…
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is on a mission to visit Jupiter’s ancient Trojan asteroids, but it took time during its journey to capture some poignant views of its home planet. NASA shared the images on Tuesday, and they serve as a reminder of just how so…
The final solar eclipse of 2022 has come and gone. The partial eclipse, which manifested as a dark bite out of the sun, was visible in parts of Asia, Africa and Europe on Tuesday, Oct. 25. If you missed it, you can still enjoy the images and vi…
This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.
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Talk about an absolute unit. A team of researchers released a study this week on what they’re calling “the heaviest bony fish in the world,” a giant sunfish found dead and floating in the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean in late 2021. Bony fish, as…
Jupiter’s jumbo-size moon Ganymede and intriguing icy moon Europa posed for the most detailed images ever taken of them from Earth. Planetary scientists from the University of Leicester used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope i…
SpaceX is launching so many Falcon 9 rocket missions, they’re practically routine at this point: “Oh look, another Falcon 9 launch. What’s for lunch?” But sometimes we get a new perspective on a mission that renews my excitement for rockets. On…