An analysis of recently declassified U.S. military documents confirms suspicions that, during the late stages of the Vietnam War, a powerful solar storm caused dozens of sea mines to explode. It’s a stark reminder of the Sun’s potential to disrupt our technological activities in unexpected ways.

A tiny star located about 1,590 light-years from Earth could be as old as 13.53 billion years, making it one of the most ancient stars ever discovered.

The Hawaiian Supreme Court ruled that the Thirty Meter Telescope project can build on Mauna Kea, clearing the legal way for construction despite protests from the Native Hawaiian community.

NASA’s historic mission to “touch the Sun” just reached two important milestones: It now holds the record for the closest approach to the Sun by a human-built object—and also the record for the fastest spacecraft ever sent into space.

A ghostly dust satellite or two might be orbiting the Earth, according to new research building on a 60-year-old idea.

Mercury is the best planet, in my humble but well-researched opinion. Sure, it may be small, rocky, and lacking an atmosphere, but how it came to look the way it does absolutely baffles scientists. It might even have water and carbon hidden away from the beginning of the Solar System. Tonight, scientists from the…

Light’s speed limit means that looking into the distance is the same as looking into the past: The farther incoming light travels, the older it is. Out in the distance, scientists have spotted a truly enormous, ancient “proto-supercluster,” dubbed Hyperion, which could help explain how the universe forms some of its…

August 17, 2017 heralded one of the most important observations in astronomy’s history: two neutron stars colliding, sending both light and gravitational waves toward the Earth. But it left one question wide open: how two of these stellar corpses could have ended up orbiting each other in the first place.

Inquisitive kids ask some questions that parents just can’t answer. Astronomer Juna Kollmeier’s son gave her a real stumper one night back in 2014:

Jupiter’s moon Europa, with its subsurface ocean, may have what it takes to foster alien life. A mission to this icy moon is on the wishlist of many astronomers, but new research suggests it won’t be easy to land spacecraft there: Its surface seems to be littered with icy spikes, the tallest of which measure five…

Astronomers have confirmed thousands of planets outside our Solar System, but not a single exomoon. New research is bolstering the case for a suspected exomoon first detected last year, but scientists say the evidence is still not definitive.

A German-French probe called MASCOT is now collecting valuable data from the surface of Ryugu, an asteroid located 190 million miles from Earth. But it better get cracking—the shoebox-sized probe has only 16 hours to live.

Scientists disproved a widely accepted idea about neutron stars with a recent observation of a high-energy particle jet.