Stories by Lee Billings

NASA Struggles over Deep-Space Plutonium Power

Sluggish production of nuclear fuel could make solar power the preferred choice for the agency’s outer-planets missions

QUIZ: How Well Do You Know Einstein?

To Play or Not to Play the Exoplanet Name Game?

Campaigns to name exoplanets seem like Shakespearean farce

Astronomers Glimpse a Young Jupiter, 51 Eridani b

The newfound planet is 96 light years away, but it's the closest twin to Jupiter astronomers have ever directly seen

War in Space May Be Closer Than Ever

China, Russia and the U.S. are developing and testing controversial new capabilities to wage war in space despite their denial of such work

Europa's "Brown Gunk" Suggests a Briny Sea

The mysterious gunk on Jupiter’s moon may be sea salt

Search for Alien Life Ignites Battle over Giant Telescope

Private funding for the Arecibo Observatory—the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world—may be a poison pill

Kepler Mission Discovers a Near-Twin of Earth Orbiting Sunlike Star

The planet, Kepler 452 b, is likely rocky and orbits in its star’s habitable zone where liquid water can exist

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Nets Historic Cash Infusion

With a $100-million donation, billionaire Yuri Milner plans to revolutionize the astronomical quest to find alien life

Inside the Race to Glimpse Alien Jupiters

Two rival teams of astronomers are racing to capture unprecedented images of giant planets around other stars. What they find could change the future of planet hunting

Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

Milner, a tech start-up entrepreneur and philanthropist, is partnering with scientists around the world to search for life among the stars

At Pluto, the End of a Beginning

Early this morning, if all has gone well, the first golden age of interplanetary exploration will have come to a close

Book Review: Aurora

Books and recommendations from Scientific American

Hubble's Proposed Supersize Successor Generates Controversy

As the legendary space telescope enters its twilight years, astronomers are searching for a replacement, but no one agrees about what it should accomplish

Taking the Weight of an Alien World

Making Space for Everyone: A Q&A with BoldlyGo's Jon Morse

NASA’s former director of astrophysics plans to revolutionize space science with agile, privately funded missions

NASA Tests Its Flying-Saucer Lander for Mars

The lander, a six-meter Kevlar-inflatable disk, could carry heavier loads to the Red Planet

Frenzy-Feeding Black Hole Makes Galaxy Most Luminous

A galaxy 12.5 billion light-years away gives off the light of 300 trillion suns, because its feeding black hole produces enough heat to set the whole galaxy's dust glowing. Lee Billings reports  ...

Launch of First Private Solar Sail–Powered Spacecraft Set for Wednesday [Video]

With its LightSail project, the Planetary Society aims to take the next step in its decades-long quest to transform spaceflight

Scientific American Presents: Neil deGrasse Tyson-on StarTalk [Video]

Neil deGrasse Tyson is host of StarTalk, which is both a top-rated podcast and a television series on National Geographic Channel. Click here for full transcript