After a seven-month investigation, ESA has released the results of its inquiry into the crash of its unmanned Schiaparelli lander on Mars last October. Telemetry data and orbital images show that the accident was due to a violent rotation of the module that fooled the onboard computer.

Excitement greets pictures of giant, chaotic weather systems plus new measurements that will help build unprecedented map of planet’s interior

Leland Melvin on the perseverance and different communities that helped launch his career into space.

Please welcome to the stage a master illusionist. An energy beam that stabs out of galaxy M87 like a toothpick in a cocktail olive is pulling off the ultimate magic trick: seeming to move faster than the speed of light. Almost five times faster, in fact, as measured by the Hubble Space Telescope. This feat was first observed in 1995 in galaxy M87, and has been seen in many other galaxies since. It might have you questioning your entire reality. Nothing can break the cosmic speed limit, right? You can’t just flaunt the laws of physics… can you?

Tabby's star, famous for its inexplicable dips in brightness, is going through one of those dips right now.

SCIENTISTS believe they may have discovered evidence of a parallel universe that crashed into our own in a galactic impact mirroring a car crash. Since 2004, when it was first spotted by NASA, scientists have been baffled by the discovery an unusually cold region of space which is 1.8 billion light years across and colder than its surroundings. It was thought the region might have been a trick of light or it was colder because it had 10,000 less galaxies than other areas of the same size.

On March 24th, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet was joined by NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station… By Andrew Liszewski.

In a giant hangar in remote Kazakhstan, two Russian space shuttles that never made it into orbit are collecting dust.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the first human-documented supernova was observed by ancient Chinese astronomers, who witnessed a bright "guest star" lighting up the night sky in 185 AD. A couple of millennia later, scientists have proposed various explanations for what gave rise to the supernova remnant RCW 86, but now a team of astrophysicists think they've pinned it down: the supernova was caused by one half of an exploding binary star system, which blasted its stellar partner with a flood of heavy elements, including calcium.

The low angle of the sun over Tethys' massive canyon, Ithaca Chasma (near the terminator, at right), highlights the contours of this enormous rift. Ithaca Chasma is up to 60 miles (100 kilometers) wide, and runs nearly three-fourths of the way around icy Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across). The canyon has a maximum depth of nearly 2.4 miles (4 kilometers) deep. The giant crater Odysseus -- usually one of Tethys’ most recognizable features -- is barely seen in profile along the limb, at upper left.

Dr. John Wilkins’ lunar ambitions were a little too lofty. By Natalie Zarrelli.

Next week, scientists will gather at the Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) in Mesa, Arizona. A quick glance at the 63 session topics shows Europa (and other ocean worlds) will be a hot topic of discussion. And it’s easy to see why. Earlier this month, two NASA missions gave us new insight into the icy, wet worlds of Enceladus and Europa. Enceladus stole most of the headlines, but the new data from Europa is promising.

Nearly 15 years after her first space launch, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has now spent more time off-planet than any other American, at more than 534 days. Whitson, 57, is a biochemist who has twice commanded the International Space Station. "It is one of those rides that you hope never ends," Whitson tweeted last night. "I am so grateful for all those who helped me on each of my missions!"

Virgin Galactic had VSS Unity, its upgraded SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, bend its wings into a “feathered” position for the first time in the air. By Alan Boyle.

There might be alien life in our own solar system, Nasa has announced. All of the necessary things to support life have been found on one of the moons that orbits Saturn. Enceladus has chemicals that when found on Earth tend to indicate life, suggesting that there might be living things might be under its icy shell.

They collected roughly 4,000 TB of data in 1,024 hard drives. That picture better be good.

The Kepler space telescope has been instrumental in discovering planets orbiting stars outside of our solar system. The sheer volume of data that has come out of the mission has allowed scientists to discover thousands of exoplanets that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to see from Earth.

A review of NASA research highlights the risk that prolonged social isolation poses to long-distance space missions, as well as other dangers like radiation. (Jan. 11, 2017)

When astronomers talk about the search for life elsewhere in our solar system, they usually talk about microbes, simple and resilient forms of life known to exist in the most extreme temperatures and conditions. Space probes have mapped enough of the sun’s planets and moons to show there are no civilizations lurking in this star system, save for the one on Earth. But what if we’re not done looking yet? What if there are indeed signs of an ancient intelligent species right here, on the worlds in our own backyard, waiting to be found?

The state of NASA’s space suit supply looks bleak in a new report from the space agency’s auditor. NASA is still “years away” from having a new space suit ready for future deep-space missions, the report claims, even though the agency has invested close to $200 million on space suit development since 2007.

On Monday, SpaceX is slated to do its very first national security mission for the US military — sending a spy satellite into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office. Dubbed NROL-76, the secretive payload is scheduled to go up on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket early Monday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. After launch, SpaceX will attempt to land the Falcon 9’s first stage — the 14-story high core of the rocket that contains the main engines and most of the fuel — on solid ground back at the Cape.

This morning, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on solid ground again, after launching the vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The vehicle’s first stage — the 14-story core of the rocket that contains the main engines — touched down at the company’s landing pad called Landing Zone 1, located just off the coast of the Cape. It’s the fourth time SpaceX has landed one of its rockets on land, and the 10th time the company has successfully recovered a rocket post-launch.

In a playful “Ask Me Anything” session at Reddit.com, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said that he’s interested in visiting Mars someday, but he has some reservations. “Hi Neil!” said one questioner. “Just wanted to know your thoughts on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 relaunch and landing, and what do you think it means for the future of space travel? Also, would you ever consider to join a one way trip to Mars?”

From launching 104 satellites at one go, enabling commercial roll out of lithium-ion batteries, to taking the lead in providing energy security, the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) is firing on all cylinders. Apart from planning for manned missions to Moon, Mars and even aircraft development, Isro is now working on a plan to help India meet its energy needs from the Moon by 2030.

The star had been in hiding. A galaxy sat halfway between it and us, eclipsing it from the Earth's point of view. But when it went supernova last September, astronomers caught the image of the concealed explosion anyhow, all thanks to a cool trick of physics. Because of a bizarre effect called gravitational lensing explained by Einstein's theory of general relativity, scientists caught four separate images of the supernova in a single picture.

We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow.

Canada will finally have its own spaceport courtesy of private space corporation Maritime Launch Services. The company plans to start building (PDF) the facility next year in an isolated town on Nova Scotia's eastern coast. It decided on the site after assessing 14 different candidates. The town's and surrounding areas' low population density and the fact that rockets launching from the spaceport will fly over a large body of water make it the perfect location.

Here's how to catch a black hole. First, spend many years enlisting eight of the top radio observatories across four continents to join forces for an unprecedented hunt. Next, coordinate plans so that those observatories will simultaneously turn their attention to the same patches of sky for several days. Then, collect observations at a scale never before attempted in science — generating 2 petabytes of data each night.

The Swift telescope has charted a star’s plunge into a supermassive black hole at the core of a distant galaxy. By Elizabeth Howell.

A team of astrophysicists has discovered that supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies aren't just destroyers of stars, but can also be their creators. Stellar black holes form from the collapse of a large star. They can have a mass of 20 times that of of our sun or higher, and they consume anything that gets too close, including a star.

A probe the size of a basketball court has taken unprecedented new images of Jupiter. NASA's $1 billion Juno spacecraft, launched in August 2011, took five years to reach and settle into orbit around the gas giant, which is more than 415 million miles from Earth. The probe has so far photographed Jupiter's poles for the first time, detected bizarre cloud formations, recorded mysterious auroras, and scanned deep into the planet's thick cloud tops

Today is a historic day—one that will bring joy to the hundreds of millions of Pluto lovers around the globe. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the body that is responsible for naming and classifying objects in the cosmos, has just announced that Pluto has been reclassified as a major planet.

The Kremlin is confident Russia’s state-run space agency can compete with the most ambitious companies in the field, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned the subject of space in his daily press briefing the day after Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched the first ever rocket made from recycled materials into space.

The rivalry between two billionaires is reducing the cost of space travel. Tom Standage climbs into the cockpit

With the help of NASA’s Kepler space telescope scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered a planet that seems the twin of the Venus. The newly found planet is named after the star where it orbits i.e. GJ 1132b. This new discovery considered the most important planet ever found outside the solar system.