NASA

Scientists have mapped ‘atmospheric rivers’ in Earth’s atmosphere that are responsible for transporting huge quantities of potentially dangerous aerosols around the planet, which eventually descend and impact air quality.

On May 5, 1961, about 45 million US television viewers watched as a single-stage Redstone rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Mercury Redstone 3 carried Alan Shepard on a 15-minute flight to become America's first man in space.

NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity has been given a new mission after acing its historic test flights. The drone will soon embark on some one-way flights to demonstrate its ability to act as a scout for the Perseverance rover.

SpaceX and NASA have rounded out their first commercial mission together with a successful splashdown of the Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts onboard, setting a new record as the longest-duration mission for a crewed American spacecraft.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe continues to edge closer and closer to its target, setting one new record after another. The latest came during a close approach today, where the spacecraft exceeded blistering speeds of 330,000 mph (532,000 km/h).

Apollo 11 astronaut Major General Michael Collins (USAF) has died at the age of 90 after a battle with cancer. In 1969, Collins was the Command Module Pilot and remained in orbit while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the surface.

A team has made some intriguing discoveries in the outer regions of the Milky Way. Astronomers mapped the fringes of the sparse halo that envelops our home galaxy, and found the wake of a dwarf galaxy on an eventual collision course with the Milky Way.

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter has again set new records, flying farther and faster than it has previously on Earth or Mars. At an altitude of 16 ft (5 m) it flew downrange for 164 ft (50 m) at a top speed of 6.6 ft/s (2 m/s).

Ingenuity is no longer just the world's most expensive hobby helicopter. The International Civil Aviation Organization has given an official flight designator and call-sign codes for Ingenuity and the "Wright Brothers Field" where it flew this week.

NASA and SpaceX have successfully launched the second Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station from American soil. The capsule was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Complex 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter made history again today by flying horizontally on Mars for the first time. The rotorcraft lifted off and flew for 51.9 seconds, reaching an altitude of 16 ft and flying laterally for 7 ft before descending safely.

Perseverance has notched up another first by extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. The rover's toaster-sized MOXIE unit converted carbon dioxide into about 5.4 grams of oxygen – a process that may one day help astronauts live off the land.