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Earth will soon have a new mini-moon in September — but only briefly

2024 PT5 will be a temporary visitor, arriving in September and flying off again in November.

CAPSTONE paves the way: NASA's tiny satellite reaches the Moon to test orbit for future space station

A lot is riding on this 55-pound machine.

Earth could have actually been more habitable

If Jupiter had more tilt, life on Earth could have possibly had more life.

A new approach to cleaning space junk is being tested in space right now

It's not meant to remove what's already there, but to stop new trash from piling up.

Venus might be a hellscape today because of Jupiter

The bigger they are the… harder they mess up Venus, I guess.

NASA cancels maneuver to get Juno closer to Jupiter due to faulty fuel valves -- but that's not bad news

Named after a capricious goddess, Juno lives up to her name.

First artwork to be made in space is now orbiting above all our heads

"A laugh star floating in space, above all our heads, is my attempt to create a contemporary metaphor for the hanging 'Sword of Damocles,' a reminder that the beauty of human life is so fragile."

A new model to explain the Moon's weird orbit suggests a much more violent genesis

It doesn't answer everything -- but it's a good point to start from.

Too big to orbit: Jupiter is so massive it doesn't actually orbit the Sun

They actually take one another for a spin.

NASA's Juno spacecraft sends back first color image of Jupiter from orbit

The image captures the gas giant and its surroundings in amazing detail.

New class of star-stripped super-Earths discovered

Astrophysicists have discovered a new class of exoplanets whose atmospheres and volatile elements have been blown away by the star they're orbiting. Their findings help cover a previously uncharted gap in planetary populations, and offers valuable insight for locating new worlds to colonize.

Water detected in a planet outside our solar system

Astronomers have recently discovered water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system, using a novel technique – they believe that this new method could reveal more and more planets which feature water; so far, all life as we know it, is based on water. They made their discovery on a Jupiter-like planet […]

Extrasolar hot Jupiter sheds some light on our own solar system

Since 1995, over 500 planets that don’t orbit our Sun have been discovered, with the numbers increasing more and more in the past years. But only recently did astrophysicists observe that in some of these cases, the star seems to be spinning in one direction, and the planet orbits it in the totally opposite direction […]

Messenger succesfully enters Mercury orbit

As reported earlier on Thursday morning, the Messenger NASA spacecraft was scheduled for an evening jump into Mercury’s orbit through a tricky maneuver which involved a “burn” – essentially “riding its brakes” by firing its main thruster – to slow the spacecraft enough to be captured by Mercury’s gravity. At 8:45 p.m. ET, the procedure […]

Space Shuttle Discovery heads home after final mission

When launched in 1984, Discovery was top notch; it was the best available around, and only the third operational orbiter; now, after 3 flights, over five thousand orbits and no less than 365 days spent in space, during which it traveled 150 million miles Discovery left the International Space Station (ISS) for the last time; […]