Mars

New tools attempt to capture the sixth extinction currently underway, while also highlighting ways to stop it

A test of bacterial survivability points to possible avenues for microbial survival on Mars, assuming life--and specifically Earth-like life--ever developed there

Now designated a stationary science platform, Spirit's next order of business is bracing for a long, harsh winter

On the frontier of planetary exploration, nothing is easy

A trio of studies presents evidence for the more elusive small planets orbiting nearby stars

Unlike the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, both of which have dozens of moons, and Earth, which boasts a massive moon relative to its size that helps stabilize the planet, Mars doesn't have much in the way of lunar companions.

For more than 40 years, missions throughout the solar system have sent back stunning images of our home planet

A blotch on the distant, football-shaped body could help reveal what the dwarf planet is made of

Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute sent an aquatic robot on a test run deep below the Pacific Ocean this summer

A tagalong to the Russian sample-return mission makes some researchers uncomfortable

It's the limited life span of batteries that keeps robots from being more widely available