Night sky observers are being treated this week to a view of a red-tinted full moon — known in June as a “strawberry moon” — a phenomenon that occurs when the moon sits low on the Southern Horizon. This summer, the reddish color is particularly pronounced because the moon is sitting at the lowest position…
Spacecraft and specialized telescopes have been studying the sun closely for decades, probing the secrets of its spots, flares and corona. But neither human nor robotic eyes had properly seen the north or south poles of the sun. On Wednesday, the European Space Agency released the first clear images of the sun’s south pole, which…
The northern lights are fleeting and fantastical. But Elise Wright Knutsen, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Oslo, has gotten used to them. “I’m Norwegian, so the aurora is a big thing here,” she said. “You kind of grow up with it happening over your head.” But catching her first glimpse of the aurora…
Don Pettit, NASA’s oldest active astronaut, returned to Earth on April 20, the day he turned 70 years old. That concluded his fourth trip to space — a busy 220 days at the International Space Station. Like other crew members on the space station, Mr. Pettit conducted experiments, talked with students and exercised for hours…
After looping through space for 53 years, a wayward Soviet spacecraft called Kosmos-482 returned to Earth, entering the dense layers of the planet’s atmosphere at 9:24 a.m. Moscow time on Saturday, according to Roscosmos, the Russian state corporation that runs the space program. Designed to land on the surface of Venus, Kosmos-482 may have remained…
A robotic Soviet spacecraft has been adrift in space for 53 years. It will return to Earth later this week. Kosmos-482 launched in March 1972. If all had gone well, it would have landed on the sweltering surface of Venus and become the ninth of the uncrewed Soviet Venera missions to the planet. Instead, a…
Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with your naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them. The latest observable meteor shower will be the Eta Aquarids, which has been active since April 19 and…
Members of a South Texas community that has served as the hub of Elon Musk’s rocket launch company, SpaceX, voted on Saturday to formally establish a new city called Starbase, fulfilling one of Mr. Musk’s long-held dreams. At the time the polls closed at 7 p.m., 173 out of 177 votes were in favor of…
Under President Trump’s proposed budget, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would largely become the National Moon and Mars Administration, with an almost singular focus on getting astronauts to those two destinations. The Trump administration proposes a budget of $18.8 billion for NASA, down 24 percent from $24.8 billion in the current budget year. The…
Stars and planets are born inside swirling clouds of cosmic gas and dust that are brimming with hydrogen and other molecular ingredients. On Monday, astronomers revealed the discovery of the closest known cloud to Earth, a colossal, crescent-shaped blob of star-forming potential. Named Eos, after the Greek goddess of the dawn, the cloud was found…