
Israeli Spacecraft Fails to Make First Private Lunar Landing
Private organization SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander crashes down on the moon following engine and communications problems
Lee Billings is a senior editor for space and physics at Scientific American. Credit: Nick Higgins
Private organization SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander crashes down on the moon following engine and communications problems
The Event Horizon Telescope captures one of the universe’s most mysterious objects
In conversation, the 2019 Templeton Prize winner does not pull punches on the limits of science, the value of humility and the irrationality of nonbelief
New research flags jets of water vapor—rather than alien technology—as the source of the mysterious object’s anomalous motions
On January 20, stargazers across the Americas will have stunning views of a historic celestial event
Scientific American reports on new efforts from NASA and other federal agencies seeking to service and assemble large structures—such as life-finding telescopes—in space...
At just six light years away, the candidate planet would be the second-closest world known beyond our solar system—and a prime target for future studies
Astronomers have revealed never before seen features of our galaxy’s mysterious supermassive black hole
A conversation with the director and a science advisor behind a new film on the search for extraterrestrial life
Signals seen by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest a Neptune-size moon may orbit a gas-giant planet around a star some 8,000 light-years from Earth
The award’s recipients include the first female physics laureate in 55 years
The award recognizes not only the astrophysicist’s transformative discovery, but also her subsequent work to promote equality and diversity in science
Some physicists claim that the popular landscape of universes in string theory may not exist
Radar observations have revealed what appears to be a buried lake on Mars, the first ever stable reservoir of liquid water found on the planet
A decade-long international effort to track a star’s death by black hole could lift the veil on galaxy formation in the early universe
The problem would likely plague every technological civilization throughout the universe, says astrophysicist Adam Frank
The three-kilometer-wide object is near Jupiter; future spacecraft could visit if its status is confirmed
A disagreement between two canonical measures of intergalactic distances could signal a renaissance in physics—or deep flaws in our studies of cosmic evolution
The InSight Mission will look at Mars's seismic activity and latent heat to find out more about how planets get made--and how humans might live there.
As a major new catalogue of our galaxy's stars from the Gaia space mission reverberates through the scientific community, astronomers are rushing to make revolutionary discoveries
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