The mission will fire its main engines in space for the first time on Wednesday (Jan. 31), over two years since leaving Earth. NASA’s asteroid-hopping Lucy mission is finally getting fired up in space for its trip to the never-before-explored Trojan asteroids, which follow Jupiter as it orbits...

Team “pro-exomoon” is back to defend the discovery of the first and only exomoons potentially seen by humanity. Astronomers always knew spotting moons around planets outside the solar system would be no mean feat — but a debate currently raging in planetary science circles shows just how...

Iran launched three satellites simultaneously amid regional conflicts that involve what Western governments say are Iranian-backed militia groups. Iran’s Secretariat of the Government Information Council announced the launch in a statement Monday (Jan. 29). The satellites were launched atop...

Recently released James Webb Space Telescope images of 19 distant galaxies shine an entirely new, dynamic and vibrant light on these gorgeous realms. The treasure trove of cosmic portraits taken by this $10 billion telescope reveals highly detailed, and quite breathtaking, face-on views of the...

Evidence of ancient lake sediments at the base of Mars’ Jezero Crater offer new hope for finding traces of life in samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover. Perseverance touched down on Feb. 18, 2021 inside the Red Planet’s 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which is...

Nearing the end of their life, they sit quietly for long periods of time, barely noticeable, before suddenly puffing out a cloud of smoke. A mysterious new type of star nicknamed “old smoker” has been discovered hiding in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers revealed on Friday...

An asteroid discovered earlier this month will reach its closest point to Earth on Saturday (Jan. 27), when it will soar through the sky at a distance closer to us than the moon. Astronomers first detected the up to 121-foot-wide (37 meters) asteroid, dubbed 2024 BJ, on Jan. 17...

“Water on a planet this small is a landmark discovery. It pushes closer than ever to characterizing truly Earth-like worlds.” Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered that the atmosphere of a relatively small planet outside the solar system is rich with water vapor...

A pair of linked solar flares recently exploded near-simultaneously from sunspots on different hemispheres of our home star, triggering radio blackouts on Earth. A pair of powerful solar flares recently exploded “almost simultaneously” from two different sunspots located on opposite...