Space & Physics

Newfound spiderlike features suggest lunar explorers should watch their step

A single-celled organism’s pathfinding reveals connections in the universe’s vast “cosmic web”

A former space agency official argues that cutting a robotic explorer pulls the scientific teeth from the Artemis program

There’s more than one way for a star to die. Some go with a whimper, and some go with a very, very big bang

Archaeoastronomers piece together how people understood the heavens thousands of years ago.

Space weather is heating up in our current solar cycle peak

NASA’s NEOWISE telescope has searched for asteroids, brown dwarfs and luminous galaxies. The spacecraft will soon burn up in Earth’s atmosphere

An ambitious U.S. government program is working to detect and track millions of tiny space junk pieces—down to the size of a sand grain—throughout low-Earth orbit and beyond

Mysterious “leopard spots” on a Martian rock could be evidence of extraterrestrial life—or of mere lifeless chemistry. Finding out the truth may require bringing the rock back to Earth

It’s possible to see celestial objects during the day, but it’s not always easy

The Jupiter-like world Epsilon Indi Ab is one of the coldest—and closest—exoplanets that astronomers have ever seen

A novel way of making superheavy elements could soon add a new row to the periodic table, allowing scientists to explore uncharted atomic realms