space-exploration

A blurry photo captured by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia shows Artemis II's Orion capsule circling the moon more than 200,000 miles away, making it a candidate for the longest-distance image of humans ever taken from Earth.

Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire shortly after SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq.

Even at this early stage in our space faring age, humanity has already begun sending probes that will eventually reach other solar systems, even if that was not their original intention. Five robotic explorers - Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and New Horizons - are all on escape velocities out of the solar system, and might someday enter another one. They will no longer be operational at tha…

SpaceX's valuation has increased by $1 trillion since its shares started trading on Friday.

A video of the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) was captured from the SpaceX capsule Dragon.

On June 16, 1963, 26-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made history by becoming the first woman to travel into space. A former factory seamstress, Tereshkova was an accomplished amateur parachutist with over 100 jumps — a vital skill, since Vostok cosmonauts ejected before landing. Selected from over 400 applicants in 1962, she underwent months of Continue reading "June 16, 1963: Val…

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch three of AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird direct-to-cell satellites early Wednesday morning (June 17), and you can watch the action live.

A seemingly ordinary photo of Earth taken during Artemis II is hiding several remarkable features. Most viewers won't notice them immediately, but once spotted, they completely change the way the image is seen.

"With its unprecedented observational quality, JWST gives us the most detailed glimpses into distant planets to date."

Last year Christopher Reynolds started to worry that his space telescope was going to be killed. The mission had started taking shape nine years earlier, a billion-dollar orbiting observatory that would look back in time into the early universe to study the first black holes, the formation of galaxies, and more. Eight teams of researchers pitched NASA their ideas; Reynolds, an astronomer at the U…

In late 1957, around my ninth birthday, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite, called Sputnik. I became entranced with the idea of building a rocket of my own. I imagined the lift-off, the graceful arc of the craft as it careened through space. By the age of 13 or 14 I had started mixing my own rocket fuels. A fuel that burned too fast would explode like a bomb; a fuel …

Mark Kelly is a former U.S. Navy combat pilot and NASA astronaut who has served as a U.S. senator from Arizona since 2020. He earned a bachelor’s degree in marine engineering and nautical science from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. In 1996 Kelly was selected as an astronaut, and he has spent more than 50 days …

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 15: Mercury at greatest eastern elongation The Moon passes 3° north of Mercury at 4 P.M. EDT. Looking west again after sunset this evening, the Moon now sits above Mercury, forming a triangle with Mercury and Jupiter.  Half an hour after Continue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, June 16: The Moon meets up with Mer…

The European Space Agency (ESA) officially committed to launching the Arrakihs mission to study the faint and invisible galaxy halos.

This is a submission for the June Solstice Game Jam What I Built Solstice Balance is an interactive 3D calibration simulator where the player stabilizes Earth's obliquity (target 23.44°) and rotational speed to prevent a simulated thermal collapse. Players use thruster-style controls to correct tilt and spin while reacting to procedurally generated cosmic disturbances (solar flares, gravitational…

A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to begin its journey back to Earth today (June 16), and you can watch the action live.

Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory invites the public to its campus at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California for an open-house event, Explore JPL. On Oct. 10 and 11, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT, visitors will get the chance to visit JPL’s most iconic facilit…

Astrobotic unveiled its next lander headed to the moon: Griffin-1, which will carry one of the heaviest payloads ever delivered to the lunar surface.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 Starlink satellites lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Monday, June 15, 2026.

One of the hardest things to calculate for an asteroid is its mass - but it is such a critical feature. It determines how much of an impact it would have if it hits something, or how many resources are potentially available on it. But to accurately measure it we typically use optical sensing and a guesstimate of its density based on its spectral profile. A new paper suggests a completely novel wa…