A laboratory experiment found that Europa-like salty ice emits different visible glows under high-energy electrons, offering a possible new way to map the moon's surface chemistry in darkness.
Four Cassini bistatic radar flybys found millimetre-scale roughness across Titan's open seas and rougher estuaries consistent with methane-rich inflow meeting more ethane-rich liquid.
Nature's paradox: the world's most radioactive region has become a thriving wildlife sanctuary, with wolf populations flourishing at seven times the rate of protected reserves.
Even cosmic collisions can't explain how Titan keeps replenishing the methane that fuels its alien weather—leaving scientists hunting for a deeper mystery.
Two competing theories suggest Europa might harbor life—but not necessarily the way scientists expected.
The rocket maker's debut as a public company was turbulent—and a massive share unlock could make things far worse.
This visitor from the deep freeze of interstellar space suggests our cosmic neighborhood may be far colder and more alien than we ever imagined.
A whisper of gas surrounds the Moon, so thin that a single spacecraft can temporarily become its most dominant feature.
The real challenge of spaceflight isn't reaching the sky—it's learning to fall sideways fast enough that you never hit the ground.
In the solar system's most alien chemistry lab, a nuclear rotorcraft will hunt for the molecular building blocks of life where methane rains and hydrocarbon seas lap at icy shores.
Our solar system is almost entirely the Sun, surrounded by vastness and secrets—including a possible planet astronomers have yet to find.
Gravity does more than pin us to Earth—it holds our bodies together, and astronauts are only beginning to understand what happens when it lets go.
A cosmic accident separated Earth from its twin billions of years ago—one world became habitable, the other a lead-melting inferno.
Burying the bomb deep inside the asteroid, rather than detonating it on impact, could multiply the deflection needed to save Earth—if the theory survives real-world testing.
Beijing's asteroid-deflection blueprint promises to outpace NASA's proven success—if China can turn plans into practice.
A world four billion miles from the Sun turned out to be far more geologically alive than anyone dared imagine.
