Space and Astronomy

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Science

Highlights

  1. Photo CreditSolar Orbiter/EUI Team (ESA & NASA)

    Images of the new phenomenon were captured by Solar Orbiter, a joint European-NASA mission to study the sun.

    By Kenneth Chang

  2. PhotoComet NEOWISE over Mount Washington near Springfield, Ore., on Tuesday. CreditChris Pietsch/The Register-Guard, via Associated Press

    Enjoy it while you can. The frozen ball of ice won’t return to the inner solar system for 6,800 years.

    By Adam Mann

  3. PhotoTechnicians at work on the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in 2017. CreditLaura Betz/NASA, via Associated Press

    The universe will have to wait a little longer.

    By Dennis Overbye

  4. PhotoEngineers at work on the Hope spacecraft.  CreditEmirati Mars Mission

    The launch of the Hope orbiter was delayed because of weather. The mission’s goal is to make contributions to research on the red planet. But the Emirati government really hopes it will inspire future scientists.

    By Kenneth Chang

  1. Out There

    PhotoThe starry core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy, in an infrared image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. Obscured behind it is the South Pole Wall, a curtain of thousands of galaxies across at least 700 million light-years. CreditNASA

    Astronomers have discovered a vast assemblage of galaxies hidden behind our own, in the “zone of avoidance.”

    By Dennis Overbye

  2. PhotoBoeing’s Starliner spacecraft shortly after it landed in White Sands, N.M., in December. CreditBill Ingalls/NASA, via Associated Press

    The agency identified the causes of mishaps in orbit during an uncrewed test flight of its Starliner spacecraft in December.

    By Kenneth Chang

  3. Out There

    PhotoAn artist’s concept of a supermassive black hole and its surrounding disk of gas, and two smaller black holes embedded in that disk and orbiting each other. CreditR. Hurt/IPAC/Caltech

    Astronomers claim to have seen a flash from the merger of two black holes within the maelstrom of a third, far bigger one.

    By Dennis Overbye

  4. PhotoAn artist’s rendering of the helicopter, Ingenuity, right, and the rover, Perseverance, left, on the surface of Mars. CreditJPL-Caltech/NASA

    As part of its next Mars mission, NASA is sending an experimental helicopter to fly through the red planet’s thin atmosphere.

    By Kenneth Chang

  5. Trilobites

    PhotoA section of chondrite meteorite found in India, known as the Semarkona meteorite. The round parts are chondrules. CreditKenichi Abe, Hokkaido University

    Researchers propose a new model to explain the formation of most of the meteorites that make it to Earth.

    By Jonathan O’Callaghan

  1. Out There

    PhotoThe Xenon Collaboration’s dark matter detector in the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy. CreditEnrico Sacchetti/Science Source

    Do signals from beneath an Italian mountain herald a revolution in physics?

    By Dennis Overbye

  2. PhotoThe Crew Dragon capsule minutes before final docking at the ISS. CreditNASA

    Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley could stay in orbit for months to aid the station’s short-staffed crew.

    By Kenneth Chang

  3. PhotoThe NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley, left, and Robert Behnken as they made their way to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday. CreditJohn Raoux/Associated Press

    The trip to the space station was the first from American soil since 2011 when the space shuttles were retired.

    By Kenneth Chang

  4. Photo Credit

    Surviving disaster, in the astronauts’ words and photographs.

    By Jonathan Corum

  5. Photo CreditNASA/Goddard

    Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other astronomical and space event that’s out of this world.

    By Michael Roston

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Continue reading the main story More in Apollo 11 Moon Landing 50th Anniversary »

  1. Photo Credit

    See Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic photographs and words from the moonwalk.

    By Jonathan Corum, Mika Gröndahl, Evan Grothjan, Jon Huang, Lingdong Huang, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas, Karthik Patanjali and Graham Roberts

  2. PhotoAn image of the Apollo program's Saturn V rocket was projected this week onto the Washington Monument. CreditCarolyn Kaster/Associated Press

    President Trump is only the latest to propose returning to the moon and then heading to Mars. But he faces the burdens of history to accomplish what his predecessors could not.

    By Peter Baker

  3. PhotoJohn Wilford, right, covering the Apollo mission from Houston in 1969. At left is John Morris, The Times’s photo editor. CreditGary Settle/The New York Times

    John Noble Wilford recounts some of what went into writing the story of humanity’s giant leap for the July 21, 1969, edition of The New York Times.

    By John Schwartz

  4. PhotoTraining in a simulator in June 1969. CreditNASA

    Michael Collins kept an orbital vigil during Neil’s and Buzz’s moonwalk, but he really didn’t feel that lonely.

    By Kenneth Chang

  5. Photo CreditNASA

    With renewed interest in the moon, some say it’s time to consider whether, and how, to preserve humanity’s lunar heritage.

    By Nadia Drake

More in Out There »

  1. PhotoAn artist’s impression of the mysterious cosmic object, which weighs about 2.6 solar masses and lies 780 million light-years away — or did, until a black hole consumed it. CreditAlex Andrix/Virgo/EGO

    Scientists have discovered the heaviest known neutron star, or maybe the lightest known black hole: “Either way it breaks a record.”

    By Dennis Overbye

  2. PhotoAn artist’s rendering of Oumuamua, a 1,000-foot-long, cigar-shaped object that traveled through our solar system in 2017. CreditJPL/NASA

    A new study suggests the interloper may have arisen in an interstellar cloud, where stars are sometimes born.

    By Dennis Overbye

  3. Photo Credit

    A black hole was seen shooting electrified gas and energy into space. Each blob contained about 400 million billion pounds of matter.

    By Dennis Overbye

  4. Photo CreditRick Guidice/NASA Ames Research Center

    Is the pandemic a rehearsal for our own cosmic mortality?

    By Dennis Overbye

  5. PhotoDr. Roman at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., circa 1972. CreditNASA

    Dr. Roman was a pioneer at NASA, joining the agency in its early days and becoming its first chief astronomer.

    By Dennis Overbye

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  1. Britain Gambles on a Bankrupt Satellite Operator, OneWeb

    Pushed by Brexit, the U.K. government will have a platform to expand into the space business.

    By Stanley Reed


  2. Summer Solstice 2020 and the Search for Life in the Galaxy

    As you mark the longest day of the year, consider the debate among astronomers over whether Earth’s tilt toward the sun helps make life on our world and others possible.

    By Shannon Hall


  3. They Want to Sell Balloon Rides 19 Miles Up. Haven’t We Heard This Before?

    Seven years ago, entrepreneurs planned trips to the stratosphere, but tourists never got off the ground. They’re trying again.

    By Kenneth Chang


  4. China Reports Progress in Ultra-Secure Satellite Transmission

    Researchers enlisted quantum physics to send a “secret key” for encrypting and decrypting messages between two stations 700 miles apart.

    By William J. Broad


  5. Stick a Starry Night Sky on Your Ceiling

    There are about a septillion stars in the observable universe. You can bring a fraction into your home — which is more than enough.

    By Michelle Dowd


  6. NASA Needs to Find Ice on the Moon. This Rover Will Lead the Search.

    Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh company, won a $199.5 million contract to transport NASA’s VIPER rover to the lunar surface.

    By Kenneth Chang


  7. With an Internet of Animals, Scientists Aim to Track and Save Wildlife

    Using tiny sensors and equipment aboard the space station, a project called ICARUS seeks to revolutionize animal tracking.

    By Jim Robbins


  8. Trump Campaign Removes Space Video That Violated NASA Ad Rules

    The president has tried to parlay space policy into an upbeat campaign issue for the 2020 election.

    By Kenneth Chang


  9. Trump Hopes for His Own Booster Shot From SpaceX Rocket Launch

    The president, beleaguered by a pandemic, economic troubles and racial unrest, viewed the liftoff as a welcome moment of triumph that he celebrated with a campaign rally-style speech.

    By Peter Baker


  10. SpaceX Launch: Highlights From NASA Astronauts’ Trip to Orbit

    Look back at the day when a NASA crew headed to the space station from the United States for the first time since the space shuttles were retired in 2011.

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