The dawn is breaking on a new era of space exploration, with moon bases and Mars colonies potentially only decades away. Live Science tracks the researchers, companies and countries setting their sights on the stars to bring you the biggest stories in space. Whether it's reporting on concerns that alien organisms could hitch a ride on our spacecraft and contaminate Earth, explaining what 11 billion people means for space travel, sharing a glorious photo of Earth during a total solar eclipse snapped by Japan's lunar lander, or compiling a list of the weirdest things we have launched into space, our expert writers and editors will ignite your sense of interstellar adventure with the latest space exploration news, features and articles.
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US Cold War-era spy satellite explodes above Earth — and nobody knows whyThe defunct USA 32 (or Farrah III) satellite, which launched in 1988, broke apart without warning on Sept. 13, around 480 miles above Earth's surface. Experts are still unsure what caused this sudden fragmentation, how many pieces it created, or how the debris might impact other nearby spacecraft.
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NASA teases new PRIMA telescope that could see what even the James Webb telescope can'tNASA has announced that a new telescope concept called PRIMA is moving forward in consideration for a 2033 launch to look at the origins of planets and galaxies.
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'Everything we know about space travel is going to change within a decade': The fusion breakthrough that could unlock a path to the starsScience Spotlight Several companies have made significant headway toward nuclear fusion propulsion drives. Is humanity on the brink of a revolution in spaceflight?
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US military confirms weapons in orbit: Why a space 'arms race' could be extremely hard to stopAnalysis Despite the U.S. announcing it has weapons in orbit, nuclear arms have been banned from space for nearly 60 years. A new detection method could help verify whether nations are keeping that promise.
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Blue Origin rocket explosion sent sound waves 1,000 miles across the USWhen a New Glenn rocket blew apart at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in May, it released ultra-low-frequency sound waves that reached as far as Texas. Researchers estimate that the blast was roughly equivalent to the Chernobyl reactor explosion of 1986.
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NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch this weekend. When will we see its first photos?The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida Sunday morning (Aug. 30). The state-of-the-art spacecraft will help astronomers study exoplanets, distant galaxies, dark matter and much more.
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Scientists finally know why astronauts struggle to poop in space — and reveal a hidden risk of long-haul spaceflightA new NASA-backed study has pinpointed why astronauts often experience constipation in space and how that might affect their health on long-haul missions to Mars and beyond.
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'This is not the outcome we were working towards': $30 million mission to save NASA's Swift telescope failsNASA's Swift Observatory is set to come crashing down to Earth later this year after private rescue mission failure.
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NASA grants Voyager 2 another year of power with risky 'Big Bang' maneuverVoyager 1 is running low on power for science, but a successful energy-saving maneuver on Voyager 2 raises hope that the 50-year-old spacecraft can keep going.
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