A NASA probe, the length of a basketball court, is headed to the tantalizing world Europa. Planetary scientists are confident this moon of Jupiter harbors a deep ocean. A looming question is whether it hosts the ingredients and conditions to support life. With around 50 close flybys of the planet, …

Imposing bears teem in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve. But few dare enter its Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. In 1912, a volcano was born here. It erupted for nearly three days. Its ominous ash clouds left the town of Kodiak, 100 miles away, in profound darkness, nearly obscuring …

Two galaxies are merging in the deep cosmos. And the James Webb Space Telescope just captured a vivid view of the scene. The interacting galaxies, called Arp 107, collided hundreds of millions of years ago, and a bridge of stars has formed between them as they undergo the long, gradual …

There are funhouse mirrors in space. Objects in the universe can be so massive — often clusters of galaxies — that they warp the cosmos, like a bowling ball sitting on a mattress. This creates a curved cosmic lens, bending and distorting light, while also magnifying and brightening the light. …

Robotic Martians can see blue Earth in Mars‘ sky. The Curiosity rover, a car-sized NASA robot looking to find evidence of past habitability on the Red Planet, recently snapped an image of Mars’ misshapen moon, Phobos, and Earth next to each other. “It’s the first time an image of the …

The far outskirts of our galaxy are teeming with activity. Astronomers pointed the powerful James Webb Space Telescope at a distant zone dubbed the “Extreme Outer Galaxy,” and zoomed in on dense cosmic clouds containing clusters of stars. In unprecedented resolution of this region, they spotted vibrant star formation, and …

The most volcanic world in our solar system has sprouted a new volcano. And its lava flows are enormous. Jupiter’s molten moon Io has been surveyed by a number of passing spacecraft, allowing planetary scientists to see changes on the surface. Recently, NASA‘s Juno mission made the closest swings by …

Jay Buckey flew to space as a NASA astronaut in 1998. Decades later, he watched one of his experiments leave Earth on a SpaceX rocket. The space company’s Polaris Dawn endeavor — a private venture funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman — is a five-day mission around Earth featuring an ambitious …

Nearly a quarter century ago, four identical spacecraft launched into space. Now, they’re coming home. The European Space Agency sent a plane to capture footage of the first of four Cluster mission satellites reentering Earth’s atmosphere on Sept. 8. “The first recorded observation of a satellite reentry from a high-speed …

Some 480 million miles away, an ocean — harboring perhaps twice the water of Earth’s seas — sloshes beneath the icy surface of Europa. NASA’s going there. This moon of Jupiter has long intrigued planetary scientists, as a number of missions have swooped by the world’s cracked, icy crust. Now, …