
Enormous Sunshield Tested for Space Telescope

Enormous Sunshield Tested for Space Telescope

See a Total Lunar Eclipse on Wednesday—And Send Us Your Photos
A heavenly alignment will offer a view of a blood-red moon in Earth’s shadow


Total Lunar Eclipse Visible Across North America Wednesday Morning
Here in North America, we are in the midst of a tetrad of lunar eclipses, the second one visible Wednesday morning. A tetrad of lunar eclipses means that there are four total lunar eclipses in a row.

How the Ansari X Prize Altered the Trajectory of Human Spaceflight
Looking up into the bright Mojave sky in 2004, I strained to keep my eyes on the tiny spaceship 50,000 feet up. "Three, two, one... release, release, release!" came the call over the loudspeakers.

Predictions for the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics
Excitement is building — at least in science circles — for the upcoming announcements of the 2014 Nobel Prizes, along with the inevitable speculation about who might be among this year’s winners.

Dark Energy Discernment Dithers over Quantum Jitters or an Undetected Field
Astrophysicist Joshua Frieman seeks to pinpoint the mysterious substance driving the accelerating expansion of the universe

Asteroid Families Traced Back to the Collisions That Spawned Them
Space rocks tend to stick with their own kind

Interstellar Environments May Breed Complex Organic Molecules
If biologically important organic molecules like amino acids could form in interstellar space, the implications would be enormous. On the Earth we find plenty of amino acid species inside certain types of meteorites, so at a minimum these compounds can form during the assembly of a proto-stellar, proto-planetary system (at least this one) and end [...]

Earth Has Water Older Than the Sun
Not all water in the solar system today could have formed in our solar system

Two New Arrivals Send Back Pictures Of Mars
The skies of Mars just got a little more crowded. On September 21st, 2014 NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) fired its engines for some 33 minutes in order to swing into a safe orbit.

Dark Matter Looks WIMPy
Data from the International Space Station-based Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment supports the idea that dark matter consists of the invisible particles called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. Clara Moskowitz reports

India Spacecraft Successfully Arrives at Mars
The Mangalyaan probe, the country's first mission to another world, has entered the Red Planet's orbit