The James Webb Space Telescope is finally on its way into orbit

After numerous delays, the biggest space telescope ever has blasted off on Christmas Day, and will…

At least 70 'rogue' planets spotted drifting in space without a star

Free-floating planets are hard to spot, but astronomers have bagged a large haul by looking for…

Sample of asteroid Ryugu brought to Earth is a strange dark colour

Last year, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 asteroid explorer returned samples from the asteroid Ryugu, and now the…

Super-fast impacts may have made Venus an uninhabitable hellhole

Collisions with high-speed space rocks in Venus’s early history could have melted most of the planet’s…

Large deposits of water found on Mars below the surface at the equator

Previous discoveries of water on Mars were limited to the poles or deep underground, but water…

Perseverance Mars rover uncovers the watery history of Jezero crater

NASA’s Perseverance rover has found rocks near its landing site at Jezero crater with a surprising…

Milky Way shakes: The cosmic collisions that made our galaxy

Intricate patterns in the movements of millions of stars are revealing the history of our home…

2021 in review: Space tourism begins – for billionaires, anyway

A flurry of short flights aboard privately funded craft saw space tourism begin with a bang…

2021 in review: Three different missions land on Mars

Over the course of just 10 days in February, three missions arrived at Mars. Together, they…

My encounter with a different and deeply mysterious kind of corona

While teaching solar physics this year, I was once again drawn in by the mystery of…