New space companies are touting space tourism. But so far the final frontier has been the playground of the rich or famous, plus a few everyday folks who had a bit of luck.
Potentially, observers in plenty of solar systems could have detected Earth sometime in the last 5,000 years. More stars will soon move into positions that would let them see our planet.
The three astronauts who blasted off Thursday from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China will stay three months in the Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony.
"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space," Bezos said. The 11-minute flight will take place two weeks after the billionaire steps down as Amazon CEO.
For a long time, the Catholic Church rejected scientific findings that conflicted with its doctrine, even persecuting Galileo. Now the Vatican looks to promote its observatory as a bridge to science.
The successful completion of the Chang'e-5 mission makes China only the third country to have returned soil and rock samples from the surface of the moon.
At least, that's how it will look to someone craning their head aloft. On the winter solstice, the pair of gas giants will appear closer to each other in the night sky than they have in centuries.
Scientists and engineers in California are building a unique 3.2 billion pixel camera for a telescope under construction in Chile. The camera has taken its first test pictures — of broccoli.
The black hole is roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth — and more than 2,000 light-years closer than the next one known. What's more, scientists say, it may be just "the tip of an exciting iceberg."
Ever since astronaut John Glenn's first bite of applesauce in 1962, eating in space has been a challenge. NPR talks to former NASA food scientists to see how cosmic cuisine has evolved over the years.
Kindergartners from Georgetown Day School in Washington D.C., help NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro field questions to McClain, who's an astronaut serving on the International Space Station.
Dutch astronaut André Kuipers made the extra-long-distance call by accident, but he was "disappointed" when emergency responders didn't show up at the International Space Station.
Roman was one of the first female executives at NASA, its first chief of astronomy and she played an instrumental role in making the Hubble Space Telescope a reality. She died on Dec. 25.
A Russian, an American and a Canadian were aboard the spacecraft when it lifted off from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazkahstan. It's the first launch since a failed mission in October.
Vice President Pence said in a speech Thursday that the Space Force, which would be the military's sixth branch, will "prepare for the next battlefield" and "a new generation of threats."
NASA has selected the astronauts who will blast off on new commercial space vehicles set for next year. Two of them flew on the final mission of NASA's space shuttle in 2011.
We may cultivate crops in space one day, so scientists are running an Antarctic greenhouse to prepare. They've harvested the first crop, but like any space mission, it's a bit tricky.
NASA is building a new space-based laser communication that will allow live, high-definition video from Mars and beyond — something that's not possible with standard radio equipment.
We know that at the heart of pretty much every galaxy, there is a giant black hole. There is a lot that we know about black holes — and a lot that we don't know, says astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser.
The Earth's encounter with asteroid 3200 Phaethon on Saturday will be its closest since 1974 — and the closest it will be until 2093. The flyby means good gazing for amateur astronomers.
