NASA’s DART mission will try to deflect an asteroid by flying into it

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is scheduled to launch on 24 November and will…

Astronomers have found a second trojan asteroid sharing Earth’s orbit

An Earth trojan is an asteroid that shares our planet’s orbit around the sun, moving just…

13 of the most profound questions about the cosmos and ourselves

Questions that are just as enigmatic now as when we first asked them Click…

Why is there something not nothing? The big bang isn’t the only answer

The idea that the universe started in the big bang revolutionised 20th-century cosmology. But it seems…

Why haven't we heard from aliens? There is a reason for the silence

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been going on for 60 years without success. Given the…

Iodine-powered satellite successfully tested in space for first time

Many satellites use xenon as a propellant to help them change orbit or avoid collisions, but…

Why do we exist? The meaning of life isn’t to be found in the stars

We are tiny specks of life in a vast, indifferent cosmos – but to say that…

Anti-satellite weapons: Will further tests make space more dangerous?

After the Russian military smashed a defunct satellite, creating a cloud of dangerous debris, other powers…

The biggest moons of Uranus may have oceans beneath their icy shells

Uranus’s two biggest moons, Titania and Oberon, may have enough radioactive heat to maintain deep liquid…

Enigmatic Planet Nine may have been seen by telescope in the 1980s

There is an ongoing debate about whether a huge “super-Earth” lurks in the far reaches of…