China Spacecraft Enters Orbit around the Moon
The service module from a past test flight around the moon arrived in orbit there this week
The service module from a past test flight around the moon arrived in orbit there this week
The capsule was carried January 10 atop a Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Cape Canaveral. After launch the rocket came down as planned on a drone ship but hit a bit too hard
NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft finds two worlds that have sizes and orbits similar to ours
Looking for movement could complement chemical searches for extraterrestrial life. Christopher Intagliata reports
Research teams are failing to confirm plumes of water vapor reported a year ago to have been spewing about 200 kilometers into space from Europa's south pole
The company hopes to send up a Falcon 9 rocket and then safely land the discarded first stage for reuse. Lee Billings reports
Researchers aim to set aside differences in search for life on distant worlds
World events left many marks and losses in 2014, but Scientific American readers kept calm and carried on for the most part, as your top picks among the stories we published this year reveal...
The agency’s proposed human trip to a space rock has a bumpy road ahead
The capsule, designed to bring humans farther into space than ever before, conducted its first unmanned test flight on Dec. 5
The Ursid meteor shower should offer skywatchers a good view this year
From humanity’s first, flawed foray to the surface of a comet to the celebrated discovery of (and less celebrated skepticism about) primordial gravitational waves, 2014 has brought some historic successes and failures in space science and physics...
Ballistic capture, a low-energy method that has coasted spacecraft into lunar orbit, could help humanity visit the Red Planet much more often
The Christmas holiday approacheth, and for those of a Maker bent, here’s how to Build A Sled For Slinging Snowballs — Winter Warfare Will Never Be the Same. If you’re more the craft-y sort, now you can deck the halls with Nobel physicists with this physics twist on the craft of cutting paper snowflakes...
The search for Philae intensifies as researchers try to determine if it can recharge its batteries, wherever it is on comet 67P
New results suggest evidence for extraterrestrial life could be near at hand
Pres. Obama is expected to sign the legislation that also includes $5.2 billion for efforts to combat the Ebola outbreak
A couple of months ago, the sun sported the largest sunspot we've seen in the last 24 years. This monstrous spot, visible to the naked eye (that is, without magnification, but with protective eyewear of course), launched more than 100 flares...
NASA’s more than half-century-old Kennedy Space Center is evolving to accommodate the next phase of U.S. space exploration
John Grunsfeld, the former astronaut who now heads NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, thinks that traveling light could get people to Mars by the 2040s
Support science journalism.
Thanks for reading Scientific American. Knowledge awaits.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.
Create Account