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This high-resolution still image is part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. A camera aboard the descent stage captured this shot. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for...

If a spacecraft (like the one shown in this artist’s concept) ever touches down on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, the craft will need to be especially agile in order to stick its landing. The best way to know a world is to touch it. Scientists have observed the planets and moons in our solar...

NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance, the most advanced robotic astrobiology lab ever flown to another world, neared the end of its seven-month, 293-million-mile (470-million-km) journey on Wednesday, hours away from a daredevil landing attempt on the Red Planet. With 370,000 miles (596,000 km) left...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of disinfectants, alcohol-based hand sanitizers, and antiseptic hand wash has surged. As a precaution, many authorities have also increased chlorine dosage in wastewater disinfection to achieve a free chlorine residual concentration greater than 6.5 mg/liter...

Lasers are used in a new type of quantum computing called boson sampling A new type of quantum computing called boson sampling is capable of calculations that no classical computer could accomplish in any reasonable amount of time. This is the second time this feat, known as quantum supremacy...

Zinc-air batteries are typically not rechargeable. But using new materials, researchers have now built one of these devices that can be recharged hundreds of times. VIKTOR CHEBANENKO/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS Zinc-air batteries have a lot going for them. They’re lightweight, compact and made of...

Teleportation is the stuff of science fiction, but scientists are working on teleportation in the real world. They’re not teleporting people or products. Rather they’re working on quantum teleportation that could lead to the creation of a highly secure and extremely fast quantum Internet. As...

When it comes to magnetic tape storage capacity, smaller is larger. That is, as the magnetic particles that store data become smaller, more data can be stockpiled in the same amount of space. Two leading tech giants put that simple principle to work and announced Wednesday that they have...

A graphic representation of how the two black holes may have collided and merged. Photograph: AP Researchers believe noise was two black holes colliding around 7 billion years ago, creating a previously unseen class of stellar object Scientists have announced the detection of a signal from a...

This Hubble Space Telescope snapshot of the dynamic blue-green planet Neptune reveals a monstrous dark storm (top center) and the emergence of a smaller dark spot nearby (top right). The giant vortex, which is wider than the Atlantic Ocean, was traveling south toward certain doom by atmospheric...

The new sunspot cycle that began this fall could be one of the strongest on record. A team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research is predicting that the sunspot cycle that started this fall could be one of the strongest since record-keeping began. In a new article...

This SAR image shows a solar farm floating on top of the human-made Lake Tiangang in China. The fishery-solar hybrid photovoltaic power station covers approximately half of the lake’s surface and contrasts from the lake’s surface depicted by dark areas in the SAR image. A zoomed-in view shows...

Coronavirus particles (red) overwhelm a human lung cell (blue and purple) in this artificially colored scanning electron micrograph. Mucus is highlighted in green. EHRE LAB/UNC SCHOOL OF MEDICINE New closeup views of lung cells show just how prolifically the coronavirus that causes COVID-19...

Some of the pre-solar grains in the Murchison meteorite (inset) could have come from evolved stars similar to the Egg Nebula (pictured) Stars have life cycles. They're born when bits of dust and gas floating through space find each other and collapse in on each other and heat up. They burn...

Illustration of a 'hot Jupiter' exoplanet orbiting nearby star (stock image). By monitoring the cosmos with a radio telescope array, an international team of scientists has detected radio bursts emanating from the constellation Boötes -- that could be the first radio emission collected from a...

Sixty-four-meter radio telescope at Parkes Observatory in Australia, which detected potential signals from Proxima Centauri last year. Credit: Lisa Maree Williams Getty Images It’s never aliens—until it is. Today news leaked in the British newspaper the Guardian of a mysterious signal coming...

Jet fuel made from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could someday reduce greenhouse gas pollution from air travel. WILLIAM HOOK/UNSPLASH Today, airplanes pump a lot of climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But someday, carbon dioxide sucked from the atmosphere could be used to...

The Sun has a powerful magnetic field which slowly flips its poles every 11 years. Throughout this solar cycle, researchers monitor the Sun’s surface, with more sunspots indicating increased activity. As a new 11-year solar cycle began last year, researchers have been working to better capture...

An artist's illustration of China's Chang'e 5 moon sample-return ascent vehicle lifting off from the lunar surface. (Image: © CNSA/CLEP) China's Chang'e 5 lander touched down on the moon and collected the first lunar samples in nearly 50 years, but now the lights have gone out. The Chang'e 5...

For decades, one material has so dominated the production of computer chips and transistors that the tech capital of the world -- Silicon Valley -- bears its name. But silicon's reign may not last forever. MIT researchers have found that an alloy called InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) could...

A helicopter team followed a radio beacon to the Hayabusa2 return capsule hours after it landed in the Australian desert. JAPAN AEROSPACE EXPLORATION AGENCY Japan has once again retrieved samples from a distant asteroid, which scientists will scrutinize for clues about the ancient delivery of...

A new Chinese space mission will watch for gamma ray bursts from merging neutron stars. UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK/MARK GARLICK/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (CC BY 4.0) The China National Space Administration’s Chang’e-5 mission, set to return Moon rocks to Earth next week, has grabbed headlines around the...

The study, published this month in the International Journal of Astrobiology, probes the impacts of supernovas, some of the most violent events in the known universe. In the span of just a few months, a single one of these eruptions can release as much energy as the sun will during its entire...

Audio versions of telescope images such as the Pillars of Creation (shown in this false-color composite image) make astronomy more accessible for people who are blind and visually impaired Put into music, telescope observations of the center of the Milky Way create a tranquil tune, glittering...

Scientists have long suspected the Moon holds sizable reserves of water, secreted as ice in the deep cold of permanently shadowed craters near the poles. Two new studies tell us more about the possible extent of those reserves. One suggests the shadowy polar caches may cover an area equivalent...