clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Space

Come along with us as we explore outer space, including everything from NASA to astronomy to aliens.

“Equivalent to having 50 Super Bowls”: The staggering — and lucrative — scale of eclipse tourism

By Li Zhou
Play

Space trash lasers, explained

By Coleman Lowndes

America’s first moon landing in 50 years, explained

By Li Zhou

A war has never been fought in orbit. That may be about to change.

By Tim Fernholz

The sun’s poles are about to flip. It’s awesome — and slightly terrifying.

By Brian Resnick

Turns out the government can fine you for trashing space

By Sara Morrison

A NASA asteroid sample just landed on Earth. It holds clues about the origins of life.

By Ellen Ioanes

A new international space race is on — and it could junk up our pristine moon

By Rachel DuRose

Why SpaceX doesn’t see its rocket explosion as a failure

By Li Zhou

Humanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious mission

By Sigal Samuel

Why the balloon and UFO affairs are a Sputnik moment

By Jonathan Guyer

How scientists discovered the universe is really freaking huge

By Brian Resnick, Byrd Pinkerton, and 1 more

Elon Musk’s Starlink is only the beginning

By Rebecca Heilweil

NASA’s latest moon mission is the dawn of a new space age

By Rebecca Heilweil and Ellen Ioanes

The White House’s plan to colonize the moon, briefly explained

By Rebecca Heilweil

Space is deadly. NASA’s Artemis mission will help us learn how to survive it.

By Neel Dhanesha

NASA’s rules for astronaut posting: No TikTok, don’t embarrass us

By Rebecca Heilweil

The FCC wants to regulate space. Have fun!

By Rebecca Heilweil

The universe is a dangerous place. NASA just showed it’s possible to defend Earth against it.

By Bryan Walsh

The northern lights could be a lot farther south tonight

By Umair Irfan

Why Russia is abandoning the International Space Station

By Rebecca Heilweil

Why scientists really, really want to know if there was ever life on Mars

By Brian Resnick

If aliens are calling, let it go to voicemail

By Bryan Walsh

Why Boeing’s successful Starliner test is a big deal

By Rebecca Heilweil

Flight delayed? Blame a spaceship.

By Rebecca Heilweil

NASA’s moon dust monopoly is finally ending

By Rebecca Heilweil

SpaceX and our space junk problem

By Sara Morrison

A physicist’s lessons about race, power, and the universe

By Neel Dhanesha

The largest space telescope in history is about to blow our minds

By Brian Resnick

The space station race

By Rebecca Heilweil

NASA gave Jeff Bezos money to build his office park in space

By Rebecca Heilweil

The space debris problem is getting dangerous

By Rebecca Heilweil

The complicated promise of Amazon’s space internet

By Adam Clark Estes

How telescopes make the universe self-aware

By Brian Resnick

SpaceX’s latest mission was an infomercial (for charity)

By Rebecca Heilweil

Astronomers were skeptical about dark matter — until Vera Rubin came along

By Byrd Pinkerton and Noam Hassenfeld

Streaming space tourism is the new reality TV

By Rebecca Heilweil

For hackers, space is the final frontier

By Rebecca Heilweil

6 questions to consider before launching yourself into space

By Rebecca Heilweil

Welcome to the age of billionaire joyrides to space

By Rebecca Heilweil

Sign up for the newsletter Today, Explained

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.