Stories by Lee Billings

Mathematical tools from string theory are giving scientists a new way to study the networking of neurons

From crewed lunar voyages to flight tests of fully reusable rockets and launches of new orbital telescopes studying the outer limits of the cosmos, 2026 should be a banner year for space science and exploration

A look back at 2025’s biggest science stories—from federal upheaval and public health setbacks to climate policy reversals and groundbreaking discoveries in space.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has gathered groundbreaking Mars samples, but the mission to bring them home is facing serious challenges.

A major new study lays out plans for crewed missions to Mars, with the search for extraterrestrial life being a top priority

As far as annual meteor showers are concerned, 2025 has saved the best for last. This year’s Geminids are not to be missed

A machine-learning breakthrough could lift the veil on Earth’s early history—and supercharge the search for alien life

In a new book, NASA astrobiologist Caleb Scharf says the fate of life on Earth may hinge on leaving our planet behind

With the successful 11th test flight of its Starship megarocket, SpaceX is on the cusp of a new era in spaceflight

John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work showing how bizarre microscopic quantum effects can infiltrate our large-scale, everyday world

The Habitable Worlds Observatory is poised to tell us whether Earth-like planets are common—if it can get off the ground

In his latest book, science journalist Peter Brannen argues that CO₂ is the most important—and most misunderstood—molecule on Earth

NASA faces historic budget cuts that could shutter missions and stall vital research, prompting a bipartisan outcry from all of the agency’s living former science chiefs.

Spurred by competition from China and Russia, the Trump administration is pushing for nuclear power on the moon by 2030

Observations of a baby star may show the earliest stages of planet formation that astronomers have ever seen

Gaia, Europe’s Milky Way–mapping spacecraft, shut down earlier this year. It was arguably the most important—and most overlooked—astronomy project of the 21st century

A vitriolic war of words between President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk could have profound repercussions for the nation’s civil and military space programs

The White House’s $175-billion plan to protect the U.S. from nuclear annihilation will probably cost much more—and deliver far less—than has been claimed, says nuclear arms expert Jeffrey Lewis

Kosmos-482, a failed mission to Venus from the former Soviet Union that stalled in Earth orbit in the 1970s, is about to fall back to our planet. Exactly where or when it will strike, however, remains unknown

After billions of dollars in spending and decades of planning, NASA may be forced to abandon precious samples of air, rock and soil on the Martian surface. Experts are furious

Quantinuum’s 56-bit trapped-ion computer has succeeded in demonstrating randomness in quantum circuits to establish secure, private connections

After netting the world’s highest-paying science award, preeminent theoretical physicist Gerard ’t Hooft reflects on his legacy and the future of physics

The privately funded Fram2 mission is the first ever to take astronauts into polar orbit—and the latest sign of a “new normal” for human spaceflight

The final results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope offer the sharpest, most sensitive view of the early cosmos that anyone has ever seen