Spacecraft

Two rival teams of astronomers are racing to capture unprecedented images of giant planets around other stars. What they find could change the future of planet hunting

Instruments on the Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae lander discovered nitrogen and amino acids, key ingredients for life, on comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko

A pilot error was responsible for the crash that killed one person and seriously injured another last October

NASA Ames researcher, former astronaut muse on the challenges and advantages of spending time on the high-gravity planet

The planet, Kepler 452 b, is likely rocky and orbits in its star’s habitable zone where liquid water can exist

Early images from New Horizons' encounter with Pluto reveal an extraordinary surface of strange mountains and varying deposits of light and dark material

Steel strut holding down a bottle of high-pressure helium snapped during ascent, though Dragon capsule would have survived if not for software glitch

“Sputnik Planum” region is a vast stretch of icy plains whose surface is broken into cell-like polygon blocks by snaking troughs

China’s current rank of eighth in the space race is misleading. The nation’s engineers are drawing up plans for a moon-capable rocket more powerful than the U.S.’s Saturn 5

Lack of impact craters suggests the dwarf planet may be geologically active

NASA chooses astronauts to fly on commercial missions

New Horizons mission members have worked on the project for longer than it took the spacecraft to get to Pluto