Space

Roughly the size of a shoebox, the Mascot lander safely settled onto the surface of the Ryugu asteroid. It's seen here in an artist's rendering of the craft released by Germany's DLR aerospace agency.

Probe Lands On Ryugu Asteroid In Latest Success For International Group

3:34pm October 03, 2018

by Bill Chappell

On Twitter, the craft echoed Alice in Wonderland, declaring: "And then I found myself in a place like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery and danger!"

The orbits of the new extreme dwarf planet 2015 TG387 and its fellow inner Oort Cloud objects 2012 VP113 and Sedna as compared with the rest of the Solar System. 2015 TG387 was nicknamed ͞"The Goblin" by its discoverers, as its provisional designation co

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A Small Planet With Big Implications

5:01pm October 02, 2018

by Joe Palca

Astronomers have found a distant dwarf planet that appears to confirm the existence of Planet Nine, a giant planet lurking in the outer reaches of the solar system.

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Holly Ridings On Breaking A Glass Ceiling At NASA

8:23am September 30, 2018

Holly Ridings, NASA's first-ever female chief flight director, weighs in on being a woman in the field with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

A still from a 15-frame movie captured by one of the MINERVA-II1 rovers on the surface of asteroid Ryugu last week.

You've Been To Mars And A Comet; Japan's NASA Invites You To An Asteroid

11:07pm September 27, 2018

by Ruben Kimmelman

Two Japanese rovers touring an asteroid have sent photos and a video back home, which were published by the Japanese space agency Thursday.

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NASA Hosts Conference All About Looking For Signs Of Civilization Beyond Earth

8:34pm September 27, 2018

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with astrophysicist Adam Frank, who is attending a NASA conference in Houston that's exploring how to discover intelligent life beyond earth.

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The Colorado School of Mines has started the world's first Space Resources degree program. Professor Angel Abbud-Madrid conducts an online class from his offices in Golden, Colo.

Space Mining — Learning How To Fuel An Interplanetary Gas Station

3:24pm September 25, 2018

by Dan Boyce

Real space travel will necessitate interplanetary gas stations on the moon, or on asteroids. A Colorado university has launched the first degree program in "space mining."

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Spock's Fictional Home Planet Discovered

7:19am September 19, 2018

Gene Roddenberry once declared that if Spock's fictional home planet Vulcan did exist, it would probably orbit the star called 40 Eridani A. Astronomers have now found this star does have a planet.

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SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk, left, shakes hands with Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, right, on Monday, after announcing that he will be the first private passenger on a trip around the moon.

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Japanese Billionaire Books First Moonshot Aboard SpaceX's 'Big Falcon Rocket'

9:48am September 18, 2018

by Giles Snyder

Yusaku Maezawa would be the first person since 1972 to travel around the moon and the first-ever private citizen to do it. He was introduced at SpaceX headquarters near Los Angeles Monday night.

Cheers At SpaceX: Japanese Billionaire Books First Moonshot

7:40am September 18, 2018

Yusaku Maezawa is the first to book a trip as a private passenger with the commercial space company for a voyage that hasn't been attempted since NASA's Apollo missions ended in 1972.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson attends Film Independent at LACMA presents StarTalk — A Conversation with Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, on June 5 in Los Angeles.

'Accessory To War' An Uncomfortable Wake-Up Call For Some

10:47am September 17, 2018

by Marcelo Gleiser

An "unspoken alliance" between scientists and the military had been brewing for millennia prior to Hiroshima. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang excel at detailing this union and its possible future.