Science

Our Milky Way galaxy is a cannibal. It has grown by consuming other galaxies. Yet, it too, may be destined to collide and merge with an even bigger galaxy: Andromeda. Though galaxy collisions are normal events and NASA suspects this collision is inevitable (in billions of years), new research argues that with our current knowledge...

During a solar storm, the sun unleashes a torrent of radiation into space.  If you’re on Earth, the planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field shield you against the most harmful health impacts. But if you were on Mars some 140 million miles away, how those gusts of energy would affect you and the rest of the...

Some 430 light-years from Earth lies our stalwart cosmic beacon, the North Star. Except this star is actually volatile. It’s pulsating as it constantly grows and shrinks. And a new unprecedented image of the hot ball of gas reveals it’s covered in large spots. In research published by The Astrophysical Journal, researchers used an array...

A spacecraft just sped between Earth and the moon, en route to the deep solar system. And as it zipped by the cratered lunar orb on Aug. 19, the European Space Agency’s Juice mission snapped views of the 21st-century space scene. “Sometimes the journey is just as worthy as the destination,” ESA director Josef Aschbacher...

Using images from a NASA telescope, three amateur scientists discovered a star-like object sprinting through space — so fast, in fact, it’ll whiz right out of the Milky Way. This freak of nature, traveling about 1 million mph, will escape the clutch of the galaxy. It’s the first time anyone has found something this massive...

After Butch Wilmore got settled into the commander seat of Starliner earlier this summer, he thanked the people preparing to blast him and his crewmate Suni Williams into space.  “Outstanding. Nice job, guys,” the NASA astronaut said before a launch attempt that ultimately scrubbed. “We’ll see you in a couple of weeks — or longer.” ...

A car-sized NASA rover, weighing over a ton, will scale a crater wall. The space agency announced that its robotic Perseverance mission, now looking for hints of past life on Mars, is embarking on the next phase of Martian exploration. But first, it must climb out of the Jezero Crater, a region that once held...

It’s good to know that our planetary defense systems work. The European Space Agency revealed that on July 6 the automated systems that sleuth the skies for potentially hazardous objects like asteroids sent out a warning. “The object, estimated at around 50 m [164 feet] in diameter, was spotted hurtling towards Earth on a path...

A menacing asteroid, some six miles wide, triggered Earth’s last mass extinction. Now, scientists have found where it originated. Unlike most space rocks that impact our planet today, this behemoth object came from beyond the gas giant Jupiter. It was a “C-type asteroid” — which are the dark, carbon-rich leftovers of the outer solar system...