
NASA’s exoplanet mission accidentally discovers a world it was never meant to find
The exoplanet telescope TESS revealed a distant world using an entirely different detection method than the one it was built around

NASA’s exoplanet mission accidentally discovers a world it was never meant to find
The exoplanet telescope TESS revealed a distant world using an entirely different detection method than the one it was built around

What will happen to Earth’s moon in the far future?
The moon is Earth’s constant companion. But will that always be the case?


This planet survived the death of its star—and kept its atmosphere
Astronomers have for the first time observed an atmosphere around a giant planet orbiting a white dwarf

Will NASA’s SkyFall Mars helicopter fleet sink science at the Red Planet?
Mars researchers are wrestling with the potential costs of a flashy new NASA mission to the Red Planet

NASA’s Lucy mission reveals an asteroid’s hidden history
Next summer, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will start sidling up to several asteroids near Jupiter. On its way there, it has studied another space rock up close

Scientists need more snapshots of shooting stars—and you can help
Meteor camera networks can reveal the hidden history of the solar system, and you can assist from your own backyard

China’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft just arrived at a mysterious ‘quasi-moon’ of Earth
The Tianwen-2 spacecraft is slowly closing in on the near-Earth asteroid Kamo‘oalewa, on a mission that would bring China’s first asteroid samples back to Earth in 2027

This meteorite could be a relic from a ‘lost world’
Hints of high-pressure chemistry within a rare meteorite suggest this fallen space rock comes from a planet gone wrong in the solar system’s early history

JWST forecasts partly cloudy skies on a distant exoplanet
An out-of-this-world weather report from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals how clouds move across a giant planet hundreds of light-years from Earth

Why NASA wants to build a nuclear reactor on the moon
To build its moon base, NASA needs a lot of power

Rubies and opals on Mars? The real treasure in the planet’s gemstones may not be what you think
NASA’s Mars rovers have found traces of minerals akin to those that make up precious gems on Earth. But their appearance and abundance on Mars is likely very different, experts say

This sulfurous hell world might change the way we classify exoplanets
An oddity among exoplanets, L 98-59 d is (so far) in a class all its own, but astronomers expect powerful new telescopes will eventually reveal more like it