Mars

In a month’s time, the end result of two-and-a-half years of research, thinking, writing, re-writing, re-re-writing, editing, mulling, puzzling, coffee-drinking, beer-swilling, swearing, and tweaking will hit the shelves in the form of my new book The Copernicus Complex.

NASA says the rover will carry a zoomable camera, an oxygen-maker and instruments geared to the selection of samples that might be studied one day back on Earth

It's summer in the northern hemisphere of a small, damp, planet orbiting a middle-aged star in a spiral galaxy of matter enjoying a brief heyday before colliding with another galaxy in some 4 billion orbits of the same small, damp, planet.

Mustardlike plants could be the first Earthlings to call Mars home if NASA decides to let them hitch a ride on the next rover

Asteroid and comet impacts could have destroyed some habitats for life while also creating new ones for bacteria

Astrobiologists hope that the detection of certain minerals on exoplanets by ever-more-sensitive space telescopes could indicate biochemical processes associated with life

A private spacecraft is planned to skim through the atmosphere of Mars to gather dust and return home, without the difficulty of landing

NASA-funded research found drawbacks to having extroverts on teams in isolated and confined environments

In 2012, I asked LeVar Burton (who comandeered the Scientific American website as guest editor on Wednesday) if he would join me on a trip across time and space, to another star.

The release of a long-awaited National Academy of Sciences report on the state and future of the US space program has triggered wide-reaching commentary on what it means to be space-faring.

A prestigious panel of scientists recommends sending humans to the Red Planet as the space agency's wisest long-range goal

Planetary geologists are set to narrow down a list of landing sites for a mission set for 2020