A European Startup’s Spacecraft Made It to Orbit. Now It’s Lost at Sea
The Exploration Company lost contact with its Mission Possible vehicle a few minutes before touchdown in the ocean.
Scientists Are Sending Cannabis Seeds to Space
The versatile cannabis plant could, some scientists think, one day be useful for lunar and Martian colonists. For now, researchers will subject its seeds to radiation in orbit and see what happens.
The Largest Camera Ever Built Releases Its First Images of the Cosmos
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is poised to discover billions of new astronomical objects, revolutionizing understanding of everything from the history of the solar system to the workings of dark energy.
How the Universe and Its Mirrored Version Are Different
From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that differ from their reflected forms.
‘Major Anomaly’ Behind Latest SpaceX Starship Explosion
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk suggested on X that a high-pressure nitrogen tank failure was behind the explosion of the company's massive Starship rocket.
The Mysterious Inner Workings of Io, Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon
Recent flybys of the fiery world refute a leading theory of its inner structure—and reveal how little is understood about geologically active moons.
This Chinese Spacecraft Is Traveling to One of Earth’s Quasi-Moons
The Tianwen-2 probe has sent a self-portrait as it heads toward one of the most enigmatic objects in our space neighborhood: the quasi-moon Kamo’oalewa.
Astronomers Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Unlock the Secrets of Black Holes
Using a neural network trained with simulations of supermassive black holes, astronomers have found that the one at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, likely rotates at maximum speed.
Astronomers Have Detected a Galaxy Millions of Years Older Than Any Previously Observed
Researchers estimate that MoM z14 was created 280 million years after the Big Bang, 10 million years earlier than the previous most primitive galaxy recorded.
The Plan to Send Plant-Filled ‘Gardens’ Into Orbit
Off-world agriculture has long seemed experimental, but that could soon change thanks to a collaboration between design firm Heatherwick Studio and the space architecture nonprofit Aurelia Institute.