Space & Physics

Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site turned company town in South Texas, faces local opposition from residents outside the city limits

Telescopes in space give us a view we literally cannot get from the ground

Since 1966 NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has been at the forefront of Earth and planetary science from its location in upper Manhattan. Now a Trump administration directive is ejecting its scientists to parts unknown

A celestial object some 15,000 light-years away is emitting bright flashes of radio and X-rays that scientists are struggling to explain

The largest, most powerful launch vehicle ever built is meant to be a key part of SpaceX’s plans to send humans to Mars—and NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon, too

A new telescope project called the Next-Generation Very Large Array will revolutionize radio astronomy if it gets the funding it needs

Some stars streaking through the Milky Way at millions of kilometers per hour probably trace back to a supermassive black hole in a neighboring galaxy

The White House’s $175-billion plan to protect the U.S. from nuclear annihilation will probably cost much more—and deliver far less—than has been claimed, says nuclear arms expert Jeffrey Lewis

Scientific American spoke with the astronomer who has contributed to the discovery of two thirds of Saturn’s known moons

A quantum computer has used a single atom to model the complex dynamics of organic molecules interacting with light

A freak particle physics process could wipe out all galaxies and life—but it’s wildly unlikely

A new generation of telescopes could peer back to the earliest epochs of the universe