Articles

Jason Davis

Early Earth's atmosphere wasn't a place for humans. Yet the planet had microbial life—something we should keep in mind for exoplanets.

James D. Burke

Interest is rising globally in expanded lunar science, resource exploration and eventually permanent human settlement. Also, the potential for commercial lunar enterprises is being seriously examined.

Emily Lakdawalla

Throughout 2018, New Horizons will cruise toward its January 1 encounter with 2014 MU69. Preparations for the flyby are nearly complete.

Marc Rayman

Permanently in residence at dwarf planet Ceres, Dawn is now preparing to add some finishing touches to its mission.

Damia Bouic

Amateur image processor Damia Bouic shares a plethora of stunning new images of Venus captured by a Japanese spacecraft.

Emily Lakdawalla

The latest and greatest update of Emily's list of all the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE images that contain Curiosity hardware, tracks, or traverses.

Jason Davis

Europa doesn't have grandiose plumes like Enceladus. So how will the Clipper mission figure out what's in Europa's ocean?

Emily Lakdawalla

Curiosity is climbing across the top of Vera Rubin Ridge, spying varicolored rocks. It's getting closer to being ready to drill again, and has performed a wet chemistry experiment for the first time.

A.J.S. Rayl

With the Martian winter on the run, Opportunity cruised closer to its 14th anniversary of exploring the Red Planet in December as she deliberated a distinctive “fork in the road” deep in Perseverance Valley and wrapped another record year.

Casey Dreier

President Trump signed Space Directive #1, formally implementing as policy what Vice President Pence had announced at the first meeting of the National Space Council in October: that NASA will focus its human spaceflight efforts on a return to the Moon, and then onto Mars. What really changed?

Katherine Winchell

It takes years to decide where a Mars rover is going to land. Members of NASA's Mars 2020's camera team describe their participation in the process.

Adam Block

Award-winning astrophotographer Adam Block brings us stunning images of beautifully chaotic scenes across the universe.

Jason Davis

What do the shortest days of the year look like from space?

Emily Lakdawalla

Results from the Juno gravity science experiment presented at last week's American Geophysical Union meeting suggest Jupiter's winds penetrate only to 3000 kilometers deep.

Andrew Jones

China is making steady progress on a proposed mission to bring a piece of Mars back to Earth in the late 2020s.

Emily Lakdawalla

JunoCam may be an outreach instrument, but its superb photos of storms on Jupiter are providing plenty of data for scientists to talk about.

Emily Lakdawalla

At the American Geophysical Union meeting, members of the Juno team showed observations of active volcanism on Jupiter's moon Io.

James Davenport

On December 10, Kepler—NASA’s prized exoplanet discovery telescope—will finally turn back and take a picture of the Earth.

Jason Davis

NASA is about to pick finalists for its next New Frontiers mission. Will Venus make the cut?

A.J.S. Rayl

Opportunity continued the historic winter science campaign inside Perseverance Valley and delivered the goods that confirmed an important discovery in November, and then cruised through winter solstice, driving the mission closer to its 14th anniversary of surface operations coming up in January.