![150-Year Journey to Alpha Centauri Proposed [Video]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/8929FC73-45C3-4DF4-8533212047197E6C_agenda.jpeg?w=275&h=154&fit=crop)
150-Year Journey to Alpha Centauri Proposed [Video]
Humanity possesses the means to place probes into orbit around nearby stars. But do we have the patience?
Stories by Lee Billings
Is It Time to Give Up on Dark Matter?
There is still good reason to think undiscovered fundamental particles act as gravitational glue for galaxies.
A Breakthrough in the Search for Alpha Centauri's Planets
A new public-private partnership is supercharging the race to image habitable exoplanets
Newfound Source of Mysterious Cosmic Bursts Poses Deeper Enigmas
Despite a breakthrough discovery by radio astronomers, the decade-long puzzle of elusive “fast radio bursts” is far from being solved
Brain Beauty: The Art of Neuroscience
Book recommendations from Scientific American
![Q&A: The Astronaut Who Captured Out-of-This-World Views of Earth [Slide Show]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/DB4637C2-B800-4B30-8A9C9DA5F3FF1B79_agenda.jpg?w=275&h=154&fit=crop)
Q&A: The Astronaut Who Captured Out-of-This-World Views of Earth [Slide Show]
Don Pettit discusses his dazzling orbital photographs of our home planet
Plumes Spotted on Europa Suggest Easy Access to Water
Water vapor erupting from this Jovian moon could offer new pathways for exploring its subsurface ocean
The Year in Planetary Science
Take a light-speed trip through the solar system to catch up on 2016’s biggest stories from our celestial neighborhood. Produced with support from Explore Scientific
Trump’s First 100 Days: Space
The new administration will likely shift NASA resources away from Earth exploration and into deep space. But many questions remain about how the agency will be led and funded
Under Trump, NASA May Turn a Blind Eye to Climate Change
The President-elect’s space policy platform calls for disruptive reorganizations and possible budget cuts to Earth-observing satellite programs
Pluto's Icy Heart May Hide an Ocean
New studies suggest the dwarf planet’s spin is tilted askew, perhaps by the presence of a subsurface sea
New Images Reveal Fate of Lost Mars Lander
European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli spacecraft crashed and possibly exploded
European Spacecraft May Be Lost on Mars
The Schiaparelli lander’s failure to phone home has scientists fearing the worst
European Spacecraft Attempts Mars Landing
With the Schiaparelli lander, Europe hopes to join the U.S. and Russia in successfully touching down on the Red Planet
Project Blue Sets Sights on "Pale Blue Dots" around Alpha Centauri
A privately funded small space telescope could soon seek Earth-like planets around the sun’s nearest neighboring stars
Will Elon Musk Scuttle the Search for Life on Mars?
If there is life on the Red Planet—even just alien microbes clinging to existence in isolated refuges—any biological contamination we import from Earth could cause an ecological and scientific catastrophe...
In the Dark about Dark Matter
Recent disappointments have physicists looking beyond WIMPs for dark matter particles
Physics Nobel Awarded for Breakthroughs in Exotic States of Matter
David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz share the 2016 Nobel Prize for work explaining the topological underpinnings of superconductivity and other strange phenomena
Watch the Action as Rosetta Crashes into a Comet
Follow the pioneering spacecraft’s final descent to the bizarre surface of the distant space traveler
How to See Proxima b
Astronomers are racing to get the first historic image of another possibly Earth-like planet. Here’s how they’ll do it
