SpaceX’s Dragon Capsule May Be Contaminating the ISS
Contamination sensors have spiked after several SpaceX arrivals at the International Space Station, suggesting that ISS instruments could be at risk.
The View From the Control Room: How InSight Landed on Mars
Inside Mission Support at Lockheed Martin, which led spacecraft operations for NASA's InSight lander, tensions ran high as the robot prepared to touch down on martian soil.
Cosmology Is in Crisis Over How to Measure the Universe
A raging debate over the Hubble constant suggests that our standard model of cosmology might be wrong.
New Satellites Will Use Radio Waves to Spy on Ships and Planes
This month, HawkEye 360 will send up satellites that monitor the radio transmissions of ships, planes and other things on Earth, allowing them to be tracked by their communications.
Fusty Ol’ Scientific Texts Get a Gorgeous, Pricey Makeover
Arty versions of science classics are mostly a gift for your midcentury modern coffee table—but crack them open, and you might learn a thing or two about science too.
These New Tricks Can Outsmart Deepfake Videos—for Now
We'll soon find it hard to know with our own eyes if a video is real or generated by AI, but new algorithms are staying one or two steps ahead of the fakers.
Everyone Wants to Go to the Moon Again—Logic Be Damned
Space companies and national agencies are all gunning to visit the moon and kick off a bustling lunar economy, but the business case is shaky.
The Strange, Sad Case of Sunspot, the Empty Astronomy Town
New Mexico's Sunspot Observatory was evacuated over a child porn investigation. But that's just one of the forces clearing the place out.
E.T. Hunters Join Forces to Probe the Heavens
SETI Institute cofounder Jill Tarter doesn’t want her former intern to forget about intelligent aliens.
New Space Robots Will Fix Satellites, or Maybe Destroy Them
Upcoming "service" satellites will be like doctors for older, ailing satellites. Should they take the Hippocratic oath?