Elizabeth Howell

The launch is a key stepping-stone in the company's quest to bring colonists to Mars.

Meteorite hunters in Michigan found six rocks Thursday (Jan. 18) that likely came from a spectacular fireball that lit up local skies earlier this week.

The former head of a secret government program to investigate UFO sightings told several media outlets that extraterrestrial life may exist.

At least 500,000 pieces of space debris threaten satellites and astronauts, but a California-based company says it has a new approach for taking out the garbage.

If you want to do some science during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 using nothing but your phone, consider contributing to the Eclipse Megamovie project.

John Rummel, a biology professor at East Carolina University, reflects on his experiences as NASA's planetary protection officer, a job that requires a lot of science, but no alien combat.

Instead of just sending humans on a one-shot mission to look for life on the surface, a new paper envisions a future outpost on Titan that could generate power for years.

Turquoise swirls in the Black Sea — caused by phytoplankton carried on local water currents — shine brightly in a new image from NASA's Aqua satellite.

Earth and its parent galaxy, the Milky Way, exist in a cosmic desert — a region of space largely lacking other galaxies, stars and planets.

Large asteroids may be lurking undiscovered within a meteoroid stream whose particles are hitting Earth, and scientists are urging a concentrated search for them.

One of the world's largest canyons – the United States' Grand Canyon – dominates below wispy clouds in this jaw-dropping view from the International Space Station.

Amino acids act as building blocks for life, and scientists are subjecting them to extreme conditions in order to identify what it takes for them to survive on other planets.

Recent observations that a tiny object in our solar system is a likely dwarf planet has some planetary scientists grumbling again about Pluto's demotion to that status.

High-energy, ultraviolet radiation from the sun is a known as a hazard to life, yet the energy provided by our star has played an important role as the essential driver of life on Earth.

New research suggests that active volcanoes on the Red Planet could have created an environment habitable to ancient microbes.

A new paper suggests using a combination lottery and savings bond to ensure funding for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Two large dust storms in two weeks, each spanning an area larger than the United States, have researchers pondering the atmospheric dynamics on Mars.