Space

A new study has identified 1,004 stars from which aliens could detect signs of life in Earth’s atmosphere by watching as our planet passes across the disk of the Sun. The study could help provide targets for groups searching for alien civilizations.

On Tuesday this week, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of asteroid Bennu to snatch a sample of the ancient pristine rock, and took off again. And now NASA has released images and video from the robot’s perspective.

In a truly remarkable feat of engineering, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has scooped a sample of soil from the surface of asteroid Bennu, as it hurtles through space some 205 million miles from Earth.

NASA’s plans to return to the Moon involve building the infrastructure to support a long-term lunar base. As part of this vision, the agency has selected Nokia to help it build the first ever cellular network on the natural satellite.

Four-wheeled robotic rovers may be a good choice for the exploration of other planets, but they could conceivably get stuck at the bottom of deep craters. NASA's DuAxel rover is designed with that in mind, as it splits in two for steep descents.

The star Betelgeuse has dimmed twice in the past year. Now astronomers say they’ve found what may have caused the latest episode – and also discovered that the star is smaller, closer to Earth and further from exploding than previously thought.

ESA has awarded Airbus a €491 million contract to design and build the Earth Return Orbiter, which will return the first samples collected from the Red Planet by NASA's Perseverance rover to Earth.

The joint ESA-JAXA BepiColombo probe has successfully completed the first of two scheduled flybys of Venus, gathering data about the planet's dense carbon dioxide atmosphere as it came to within 10,720 km its surface.

It has been revealed today that planetary scientist Alan Stern will be among the first humans to be carried into space by Virgin Galactic's spaceplane, where he’ll take a hands-on approach to a pair of high-altitude experiments.

With space exploration becoming more accessible to more countries, cooperation will be key. NASA has outlined the principles for that peaceful future in the Artemis Accords, and now eight nations have signed on as founding members.

Private space company Blue Origin had a doubly successful outing with its New Shepard rocket today, reusing the same booster for a record seventh time and doing so with a particularly important payload onboard.

New findings from NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe of asteroid Bennu's gravity field suggest that the core is less dense than the outside shell, and possibly contains a large void – which could spell its doom in the not-too-distant future.