Space Exploration

Intriguing ridges add to dwarf planet's geologic mysteries

In an off-the-cuff remark to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the former National Security Agency contractor suggested E.T. might send encrypted messages that humans mistake for noise

The Earth’s shadow will darken the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in addition to the moon

In "To Scale: The Solar System" filmmakers Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh, along with a few of their friends, build a size-accurate model of our cosmic backyard in Nevada's Black Rock Desert

The Amazon founder announced plans to fly a fleet of reusable spacecraft from the Cape Canaveral spaceport

This week brings a video reconstructed from images of the Philae lander's approach to a comet, and a major new analysis of data from the Cassini mission that bolsters the case for a global, not just local, ocean beneath the icy crust of Enceladus

A galactic satellite reveals where some of our galaxy's elusive material is hiding 

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s incongruous chemical composition and shape raise questions about the origin of our solar system

Sluggish production of nuclear fuel could make solar power the preferred choice for the agency’s outer-planets missions

A new lightweight material that heals itself when punctured could help spacecraft survive run-ins with debris. Christopher Intagliata reports

NASA's New Horizons team decide on their next target, a classical Kuiper Belt object that can be reached by January 2019, but the agency must still approve funds for this extended science mission