To achieve their space dreams, rivals Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos need to first solve how to refuel their spacecraft in orbit.

Each of Comet Izumi’s unknown orbits from the Oort Cloud is speculated to take just under a billion years. The comet has, ...

Work is already underway to prepare for the arrival of Sapphire Canyon, the most intriguing rock collected on Mars—though it may not matter in the end.

In the early 2000s, Drew persuaded the U.S. military to fund a search for the brain chemicals that trigger hibernation in the ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. In the late ...

The availability of oxygen beyond Earth is a crucial factor for human exploration of space. We do need it to breathe after ...

How much does it cost to fling a scientific payload through millions of miles of interplanetary space and then return some of ...

Science fiction enriches its stories by inventions like faster-than-light travel. Some are pure fiction, while others are ...

The U.S. wants to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030, but the first challenge is finding an ideal spot.

NASA and Google are testing an AI-powered medical assistant to help astronauts diagnose and treat health issues during ...

Beneath the surfaces of distant planets, microbes might subsist on harsh radiation rather than starlight, a new study ...

Mars is accelerating toward Earth, with gravity from our planet causing Mars to crack under intense pressure. Though Mars is ...