At least once in our lives, we’ve all seen a bright streak of light briefly blaze across the sky and have quickly referred to it as an asteroid, meteor, shooting star, comet, or
When a meteoroid hits the Moon’s surface, it does more than just dig up a little dirt. It actually excavates a little bit of cosmic history that recorded a long-ago supernova explosion. Scientists
NASA’s newest eye on the sky, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, has begun its journey to unravel the secrets of dark matter, dark energy and Earthlike planets — months ahead of schedule.
The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), has vastly outlived its original two-year mission plan. As the successor to the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, it has spent
The Falcon Heavy soars by the rising Sun as it departs Florida’s space coast with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now. Update: The Roman Space telescope was successfully launched
Welcome back to our series on Interstellar Travel, where we look at the many proposals made for sending missions to the stars since the dawn of the Space Age. In our first installment,
Since the dawn of human space exploration, astronauts, scientists, and engineers have examined the short- and long-term effects of microgravity (often mistakenly called zero-gravity) on the human body. This includes the distribution of
One of the primary objectives of space exploration that often gets overlooked is the intense effort that goes into ensuring Earth microbes don’t contaminate planetary objects, also called forward contamination. This is done
Observing comets is tricky. They’re easier to see when they’re closer to the Sun, but proximity to the star heats them up and releases volatiles. That creates a coma around the comet, which
It’s no secret that spending time in space takes a toll on the human body. Thanks to decades of research from spaceflight programs and the International Space Station (ISS), it is known that
