NASA Planetary Scientist Noah Petro dishes on what it took plan the impressive touch-and-go return mission, why much of the sample will be preserved for future generations of humanity, the best-case ...

When NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned a pristine sample from asteroid Bennu, scientists expected ancient space dust. Instead, early analysis revealed organic compounds, water-related minerals, and ...

Asteroids would’ve supplied the raw materials, heat, and geologic plumbing to circulate prebiotic matter while also creating ...

Dust from asteroid Bennu is revealing a surprising origin story for life’s building blocks. New research suggests some amino acids formed in frozen ice exposed to radiation, not warm liquid water as ...

Penn State researchers think a key ingredient for life may have formed in deep freeze, not in a warm asteroid puddle. A space sample with a new twistScientists at Penn State; led by geoscientist ...

The University of Arizona has launched Bear Down 100, a campaign celebrating the centennial of its iconic rallying cry while ...

Space around the Sun contains far more than planets. Scattered through it are smaller bodies made of rock, metal, ice and dust. These objects move on .

NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben Around 15 percent of near-Earth asteroids have small moons, which suggests binary systems are fairly common. Many of the larger asteroid pairs have likely formed ...

The NASA DART spacecraft shifted the orbits of two asteroids around the sun after intentionally crashing into one of them.

NASA vs SpaceX rockets represent two powerful approaches shaping modern space exploration. One reflects decades of government-led engineering built for deep-space reliability, while the other pushes ...

She’s worried about the a-rock-alypse. A planetary defense expert is warning that humanity is defenseless against up to 15,000 undetected near-Earth asteroids that have the potential to take out a ...

5:10 a.m. update: NASA confirms the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is fully loaded and ready for launch. Fuel loading is complete on the second stage, and liquid oxygen loading has begun. The count remains on ...