The number of planets detectedThe number of planets detected around other stars - or exoplanets - is set to hit the 4,000 mark. The huge haul is a sign of the explosion of findings from searches with telescopes on the ground and in space over the last 25 years. It's also an indication of just how common planets are - with most stars in the Milky Way hosting at least one world in orbit around them.

When the Mars 2020 rover lands on the Red Planet in early 2021, it will carry with it a small helicopter, the first human craft to fly on another planet. Until now, Mars has hosted orbiters, landers, and rovers, but no flying machines. The Mars helicopter is meant only as a technology demonstration. If it doesn’t work, the Mars 2020 mission will still succeed. If it does, it will have opened up entirely new avenues for exploring other worlds.

The fireball is the second most powerful in 30 years and the biggest since Chelyabinsk in 2013.

NASA has issued a warning about space herpes after a study found the virus was reactivating in crew aboard Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions. According to the agency, while only a small proportion of the astronauts develop symptoms as a result of the dormant virus awakening, it could spell danger for longer spaceflight missions - for instance to Mars.

A NASA spacecraft that will return a sample of a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu to Earth in 2023 made the first-ever close-up observations of particle plumes erupting from an asteroid’s surface. Bennu also revealed itself to be more rugged than expected, challenging the mission team to alter its flight and sample collection plans, due to the rough terrain.

We may not have to wait much longer to get our first glimpse of E.T., NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said. NASA has made the search for alien life a high priority, and recent discoveries give ample reason for optimism that the endeavor will be successful soon, Bridenstine said last week at a ceremony announcing the death of the agency's record-setting Opportunity Mars rover.

President Donald Trump's NASA budget request for the 2020 fiscal year includes funding for a Mars sample return mission that could launch as soon as 2026, the space agency's chief Jim Bridenstine said today (March 11). The mission would fetch rock samples packed up by the agency's Mars 2020 rover and bring them back to Earth for study in terrestrial labs. Such a mission has frequently been discussed, but not typically included on a budget request for the agency; NASA's concrete timeline for Mars science missions to Mars has always fizzled out after the Mars 2020 rover mission.

After President Donald Trump revealed his budget proposal Monday, NASA had a forward-looking event of its own. The agency plans to build a space station orbiting the moon, send humans back to the moon by 2028, and eventually send them all the way to Mars.

President Donald Trump has submitted his proposed 2020 NASA budget and one message is very clear: The American space priority is a human presence on the Moon and one that is established fast. Speaking from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine introduced the “Moon to Mars” budget proposal — the first step in an annual process that specifies the agency’s funding.

"We can confirm hard capture is complete." Those words at 6:02 a.m. ET Sunday confirmed that SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule had successfully attached itself to the International Space Station, about 27 hours after lifting off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Plans call for it to remain docked with the station for five days. On March 8, it will undock and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean around 8:45 a.m. ET.

NASA's Mars InSight mission is stuck between a rock and a hard place — quite literally. The space administration's lander probe, which is designed to dig as far as five metres below the surface and measure heat coming from inside the planet, hit a snag after encountering what scientists suspect is a "rock or some gravel". The drilling instrument, dubbed 'the mole', first encountered trouble last week when it struck what appeared to be a couple of stones, prompting developer Astronika to lament that "the Mars environment is not very favourable to us".

NASA is always keeping an eye on space rocks that get anywhere near Earth, and 2019 has been a relatively calm year in terms of close passes. A recently discovered asteroid is going to make a not-super-close pass of Earth later this week, and while it doesn’t pose much of a threat to our planet it’s worth mentioning simply because of its size.

Researchers are working with Nasa to see if clowns help team cohesion on long space missions

Canada is joining a U.S.-led project that will see humans return to the moon and set the stage for further exploration to Mars, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday. Known as the Lunar Gateway, the project includes an outpost that will provide living space for astronauts orbiting the moon, a docking station for visiting spacecraft and laboratories for research.

On Saturday morning SpaceX will attempt to launch its Crew Dragon spacecraft for the first time, marking the latest step in a relationship between NASA and the California rocket company that has now spanned 13 years. It has been a fruitful relationship for both.

A day after its launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX’s uncrewed Crew Dragon spacecraft has successfully docked with the International Space Station, CNN reported on Sunday.

Following on the heels of its announcement to return to the moon this year, NASA announced Thursday the first batch of science projects and technology demonstrations they want to send skyward in 2019, assuming their commercial partners can launch on time. The selections highlight the science questions NASA wants answered as it ramps up robotic missions to the moon and shoots for placing humans back on the surface within the next decade, this time on a more permanent basis.

A gargantuan green dragon hisses in the sky over Iceland. Either "Game of Thrones" really upped its production budget for its final season, or the sun belched a barrage of charged particles into our atmosphere again. As much as any of us would like to see a real dragon breathe flames into the winter sky, buzzkill NASA blames solar activity — as usual — for the writhing, "fire-breathing"- aurora that loomed over Iceland earlier this month.

Shortly after rocketing a commercial spaceship made for humans into orbit on its first journey, SpaceX founder Elon Musk felt confident enough to say that he himself may eventually take a ride. "I'd be happy to go on the vehicle," Musk, who has never traveled to space, said of the Crew Dragon spaceship, his rocket company's seven-passenger space capsule. "I think it's a good design."

Hard on the heels of discovering what could be a massive impact crater deep under the Greenland ice sheet, scientists think they may have discovered a second, unrelated such structure nearby. The new suspected impact crater is about 22 miles (36 kilometers) wide and, like the first structure, has not yet been definitively identified as an impact crater. There are many more crater-shaped features on Earth than there are actual craters formed by meteorites slamming into the planet.

SpaceX has filed an official protest with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) after NASA awarded competitor United Launch Alliance a launch contract for Lucy, an interplanetary probe meant to explore a belt of unique asteroids clustered around Jupiter’s orbital swath. Announced on January 31st, SpaceX believes that NASA made a decision counter to the best...

A bold life-hunting mission to the surface of Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa was shut out yet again in the 2019 federal budget proposal, but NASA still aims to see it fly. The budget request, which was released Monday (Feb. 12), allocates $19.9 billion to NASA in 2019 and lays out some details about the agency's plan to return humans to the moon — a key focus that the Trump administration announced this past December.

The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, and the data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage: China and India. This surprising new study shows that the two emerging countries with the world’s biggest populations are leading the improvement in greening on land. The effect stems mainly from ambitious tree planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries. In 2017 alone, India broke its own world record for the most trees planted after volunteers gathered to plant 66 million saplings in just 12 hours.

Apollo 11's historic magnitude is etched in Americans' minds, but behind the "one small step" are unknown stories that have slipped through the cracks. A forthcoming documentary showcases some of these moments in an unusual fashion, taking the viewer into the era of Apollo and the space race, from Sputnik's launch to the shuttle era.

SpaceX’s Dragon Crew spacecraft has completed its maiden journey, paving the way for the US company to take humans into space for the first time. The capsule docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday. It was carrying a dummy named Ripley, along with supplies for the three astronauts who are currently resident in orbit. On Friday, it will undock and return to Earth, parachuting into the Atlantic Ocean.

Before a Martian dust storm took out Opportunity in June 2018, the rover was able to capture hundreds of images that NASA has now released as a panorama. The 360-degree photo is composed of 354 images overall, taken by the rover's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13th through June 10th. It shows the vehicle's final resting place in Perseverance Valley located in Endurance Crater's western rim. The rover lost touch with NASA in June after it reported the approaching storm that ultimately covered its solar panels with dust and rocks.

NASA is considering launching its Orion crew capsule on a commercial rocket rather than the Space Launch System, the agency's own megarocket that is currently under development. The Space Launch System (SLS) is a super-heavy-lift launch vehicle touted as what will be the most powerful rocket in existence. It will be capable of carrying astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, as NASA aims to do with the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.

Three astronauts, including two who had their mission aborted last October when their Soyuz rocket malfunctioned, are heading to the International Space Station this afternoon.

The popular press was recently abuzz with sad news from the planet Mars: Opportunity, the little rover that could, could do no more. It took an astonishing 15 years for it to give up the ghost, and it took a planet-wide dust storm that blotted out the sun and plunged the rover into apocalyptically dark and cold conditions to finally kill the machine. It lived 37 times longer than its 90-sol design life, producing mountains of data that will take another 15 years or more to fully digest.

Scientists want to return to Saturn's moon Titan to investigate its complex chemistry — this time buoyed by Earth's fascination with drone technology.

Astronauts—they’re just like us. Last week, the International Space Station was plagued by a leaky toilet. The crew onboard had to put their plumbers’ hats on and get to work repairing the system as gallons of water spilled weightlessly out into the spacecraft, 250 miles above the surface of the earth. Yeeeesh, that’s rough.

Late Tuesday night, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent their final data uplink to the Opportunity rover on Mars. Over this connection, via the Deep Space Network, the American jazz singer Billie Holiday crooned "I'll Be Seeing You," a song which closes with the lines:

NASA is launching a new research partnership to tackle the search for life beyond Earth, including life that may look very different from the kinds we're familiar with. The new research partnership, called the Network for Life Detection, will bring together a new NASA center dedicated to astrobiology with academic scientists in order to sort out how life began here on Earth and where it might be lurking elsewhere in the universe.

Our Solar System is full of planets and moons that are quite interesting, varying from dusty rock worlds like Mars to frigid collections of methane lakes like on Saturn’s moon Titan. But of all the objects orbiting the Sun, Jupiter has to be the most interesting to look at. There’s just so much going on in its swirling clouds that you could stare forever and never get bored.

NASA scientists have recreated the conditions in which life formed deep in the Earth’s ocean four billions years ago, which may offer insights into possible habitats in the cosmos which could host alien life. Astrobiologist Laurie Barge and her team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are working to recognise life on other planets by studying the origins of life here on Earth.