The dawn is breaking on a new era of space exploration, with moon bases and Mars colonies potentially only decades away. Live Science tracks the researchers, companies and countries setting their sights on the stars to bring you the biggest stories in space. Whether it's reporting on concerns that alien organisms could hitch a ride on our spacecraft and contaminate Earth, explaining what 11 billion people means for space travel, sharing a glorious photo of Earth during a total solar eclipse snapped by Japan's lunar lander, or compiling a list of the weirdest things we have launched into space, our expert writers and editors will ignite your sense of interstellar adventure with the latest space exploration news, features and articles.
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A 3,200-pound NASA spacecraft could fall to Earth any minute nowNASA's Swift Observatory is about to make a fiery reentry through Earth's atmosphere after a private mission to save it failed. Most of the spacecraft will burn up in orbit.
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Mars-bound astronauts could face years of heart scarring, rat study hintsRats that were exposed to radiation similar to what Mars-bound astronauts might face showed higher levels of scar tissue in their hearts, indicating they were more vulnerable to heart failure.
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First clear image of China's mysterious 'divine dragon' space plane revealed in US government reportThe Defense Intelligence Agency's latest "Challenges to Security in Space" report included a declassified satellite photo of China's Shenlong, or "divine dragon," space plane, which has released at least nine mysterious payloads into low Earth orbit since 2022.
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NASA's Swift observatory ends 22-year mission, will crash to Earth 'in the next few weeks'NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has officially ended its mission after more than 20 years, as it approaches a fiery reentry through Earth's atmosphere.
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'We're never going to come home': Artemis II commander recalls the most terrifying moment of his 10-day trip around the moonArtemis II Commander Reid Wiseman felt genuine fear when he saw the Orion spacecraft had gone farther from Earth than anticipated, the astronaut told an audience at the Starmus VIII festival this week.
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Japan launches world's first round-trip mission to MarsThe Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, which launched from Japan on Oct. 19, is on its way to Mars. When it arrives, the probe will attempt to land on one of the Red Planet's twin moons and scoop up rocks to bring back to Earth. Experts tell Live Science what these "transformative" samples could teach us.
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Could we ever create artificial gravity on a spaceship?Life's Little Mysteries Microgravity poses severe health risks for astronauts. But could there be a solution?
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SpaceX's Starship reaches orbit for the first time, then returns early and explodesSpaceX got its Starship rocket into orbit, but after a tense few minutes of comms and the loss of an engine, the call was made to end the mission early.
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US Cold War-era spy satellite explodes above Earth — and nobody knows whyThe defunct USA 32 (or Farrah III) satellite, which launched in 1988, broke apart without warning on Sept. 13, around 480 miles above Earth's surface. Experts are still unsure what caused this sudden fragmentation, how many pieces it created, or how the debris might impact other nearby spacecraft.
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