Planetary Science

By plying its ground-penetrating radar in the depths of Mars’s Jezero Crater, this rover has found even older deltas buried beneath those seen on the surface from space

China and the U.S. are in a high-stakes race to build permanent lunar outposts. Can both nations coexist on the moon?

An obscure lunar region called Rimae Bode is emerging as a high-priority landing site for China’s first crewed moon mission

Earthlings aren’t the only ones safe from a city-wrecking-sized asteroid. Future lunar inhabitants won’t have to worry about a strike in 2032 either

New insights into a tiny, tough microbe have huge implications for the search for life beyond Earth

Although astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets, the number of confirmed exomoons—and exorings—is still zero. But that may soon change

Fresh observations from the James Webb Space Telescope show how vivid auroras surge through Uranus’s tilted magnetic field

On Thursday the U.S. president ordered the release of federal files related to UFOs and aliens, although no evidence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth is known to exist

A study published today helps explain how “planetesimals”—the building blocks of planets—came to be

Four worlds around a small, dim star are challenging theories of planet formation

An experiment to quantify the amount of the universe’s lightest element in Earth’s core suggests that the planet’s water has mostly been here since the beginning

On Friday NASA laid out the time line for Artemis II, humanity’s first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years