Astronomers have found more than 5,000 planets in the last three decades, but that’s not nearly as exciting as potentially coming across the first extraterrestrial creatures. And we may finally be in a position to make that discovery.

After we retrieved samples of the moon, it was quite a while before we could land on anything else and bring bits of it back home.<br/>

Mars’s moon, Phobos, is striped with grooves all across its surface. But if one theory about where they came from is true, does that mean this moon might be on its way out?

The Sun isn’t the only celestial body in the solar system to boast spots of its own. Mercury, too, has its fair share, and they’re worth wondering about.

Many space missions take billions of dollars and decades of work to get develop, but 25 years ago this spacecraft delivered stunning results on a shoestring budget and a minimal development timeline.

Living on the moon won't be easy, but it might be worth taking a note from our ancestors, and setting up in caves

If we’re going to send people to Mars someday, we’re going to need to be very conscious of the challenges presented in this endeavor. And at the top of that list is the ferocious nature of dust on the barren planet.

We usually only get to use our sense of sight in exploring the universe, but that hasn’t prevented scientists from trying to listen in.

Surveyor 6 may not have been the first craft to make a soft landing on the Moon, but it is the first craft to take off from the surface of another world. And it did so in a very adorable way. Long before any Apollo astronaut, Surveyor 6...

There are a lot of weird exoplanets out there, like 55 Cancri e (aka Janssen), which is probably half covered in lava. But the half that's covered in lava might not be quite the half you're thinking of.<br/>

The Nobel prize in physics this year went to black holes. Generally speaking. Specifically, it was shared by the astronomers who revealed to us the Milky Way’s central black hole and by Roger Penrose, who proved that in general...

Black holes are about the worst subjects for direct study in the universe. But at this stage, it’s all we can do to convince ourselves of their existence. Actually studying the physics of real black holes is much, much harder. I mean, we...

At just four light years away, Proxima Centauri is our closest solar neighbor. The recent discovery of the new exoplanet Proxima D, has reopened the discussion of whether the proxima system is our best chance at reaching another Earth....

The holographic principle emerged from many subtle clues – clues discovered over decades of theoretical exploration of the universe. Over the past several months on Space Time, we’ve seen those close clues, and we’ve built a the...

When we detected the very first gravitational wave, a new window was opened to the mysteries of the universe. We knew we’d see things previously thought impossible. And we just did - an object on the boundary between neutron stars and...

When physicists talk about black holes they’re usually referring to highly theoretical objects – static, unchanging black holes viewed from “infinitely” far away. This makes everything clean and simple enough to attempt the already...

It’s been 120 years since Henry Cavendish measured the gravitational constant with a pair of lead balls suspended by a wire. The fundamental nature of gravity still eludes our best minds - but those secrets may be revealed by turning...

Earth’s magnetic field protects us from deadly space radiation. What if it were drastically weakened, as a precursor to flipping upside down? I mean, it has before … many, many times..

Spaceship Earth has a literal deflector...

Otherwise landed in 2004 with its twin - MER-A, better known as Spirit. These six-wheeled golf-cart-sized robots were Swiss army knives of geological lab instruments. Opportunities most spectacular discovery where these cute little...

We already have the technology to bring humans safely to Mars and set up small settlements - or at least could do within a generation. But those settlements will need to be cocooned - shielded against the deadly cold, intense radiation,...

Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all super low on water – so where did ours come from and why do we have so much of it? We think our water came from a few unlikely sources: meteorites, space dust, and even the sun.

Paleodictyon, a hexagonal-patterned fossil, is a bit of a mystery. We don’t even know if it’s a trace fossil, or the organism itself. So… what could it be?

While Earth’s natural history has been playing out over the last few billion years, another epic planetary saga has also been unfolding right next door.

Fifty years ago, we sent the first astronauts to walk on the moon’s face. But what they brought back is just as important as what got them there. I’m talking about moon rocks, guys. And I got to go visit NASA’s lunar sample vault to...