Hayabusa2 Approaches Asteroid Ryugu

Asteroids Are Windows to the Past

Japan’s space agency has landed rovers on Asteroid Ryugu. The photos and samples from the mission will reveal a lot about asteroids.
pioneer plaque

Art in Space

Artists may soon be heading to the Moon for the first time, but art and space travel have been linked together since the beginning.
Neutrino Antarctica

The Mysterious Neutrino

A new discovery puts scientists a bit closer to understanding the mysterious subatomic particle that is the neutrino.
Omega Nebula (M17)

The Bold Future of the Outer Space Treaty

With President Trump calling for a “Space Force” and private enterprise increasingly invested in space, what of the dream of international peace?
Maria Mitchell

America’s First Woman Astronomer

Maria Mitchell became famous when she discovered a comet in 1847. She didn't stop there, fighting for education and equality for women in the sciences.
Dark matter galaxy clusters

Dark Matter in the Universe

According to current scientific theories, dark matter and dark energy make up most of the universe. But we don't even know what they actually are.
Mars

Great Scientific Discoveries That Weren’t

Dinosaur DNA! Life on Mars! In the world of science, amazing discoveries don’t quite work out the way the discoverer hopes they will.
NSF early star rendering

The Earliest Stars

Astronomers who noticed a slight blip in space's background radiation got an insight not just into the early stars but into the age and nature of the early universe.
Astrolabe

The San Zeno Astrolabe Tracked Time by the Stars

The astrolabe was a revolutionary tool for calculating celestial positions and local time. The device's design dates back to Islamic antiquity.
dark side of the moon

What Awaits on the Dark Side of the Moon?

An unmanned Chinese probe will be exploring the moon's far side in 2018. The side that faces away from the earth differs significantly from the familiar face of the moon. So why are the two sides so different?