Astronauts Can Drink More Recycled Pee Than Ever, and You Can Still Catch the Plague
It’s been 55 years since the Apollo 11 mission, innovative “stillsuits” designed to recycle astronaut pee could enhance spacewalks, and a surprising case of the plague has occurred in Colorado.
How Did Jupiter Get Its Great Red Spot?
New research suggests the Great Red Spot we see on Jupiter today is an entirely different giant storm from the one astronomers observed more than three centuries ago
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A New, Deadly Era of Space Junk Is Dawning, and No One Is Ready
A Saskatchewan farmer’s near miss with potentially lethal debris falling from orbit highlights the skyrocketing risks and murky politics of space junk
This Equation Shows That the Universe Will Run out of Stars
The cosmos is dark. The Lilly-Madau diagram reveals that it will become much darker still
Europe’s New Ariane 6 Rocket Launches at Last
Europe rejoins the new space race with the launch of its long-awaited Ariane 6 rocket
5 New Types of Gravitational-Wave Detectors Could Reshape Astrophysics
With the confirmation of gravitational waves less than a decade old, scientists are barreling ahead with new detectors to pick up ever more elusive ripples in spacetime
The Head of NASA Science Spent a Whole Weekend Building a LEGO Rocket
Scientific American sat down with Nicola Fox, head of NASA science, to talk about her LEGO-building hobby, the agency’s massive Space Launch System rocket and the NASA science she’s most excited about
How Light Tells Us the Story of the Universe
Almost everything we know about the cosmos is conveyed by photons traveling across vast distances
The Face on Mars and Other Cases of Cosmic Pareidolia
The human brain loves seeing patterns, even when they aren’t really there
Will NASA Pay Damages for Space Junk that Crashed into Florida Home?
Florida family files claim against NASA to compensate them after space debris crashed through their home in March
NASA Selects SpaceX to Destroy the International Space Station
The world will be watching—literally—as SpaceX tackles possibly what might be its highest-stakes endeavor to date: safely destroying the beloved International Space Station
JWST’s ‘Little Red Dots’ Offer Astronomers the Universe’s Weirdest Puzzle
The James Webb Space Telescope’s search for the earliest stars and black holes has yielded a very weird, very red, puzzle