Space & Physics

Europe rejoins the new space race with the launch of its long-awaited Ariane 6 rocket

With the confirmation of gravitational waves less than a decade old, scientists are barreling ahead with new detectors to pick up ever more elusive ripples in spacetime

Scientific American sat down with Nicola Fox, head of NASA science, to talk about her LEGO-building hobby, the agency’s massive Space Launch System rocket and the NASA science she’s most excited about

Almost everything we know about the cosmos is conveyed by photons traveling across vast distances

The human brain loves seeing patterns, even when they aren’t really there

Florida family files claim against NASA to compensate them after space debris crashed through their home in March

The world will be watching—literally—as SpaceX tackles possibly what might be its highest-stakes endeavor to date: safely destroying the beloved International Space Station

The James Webb Space Telescope’s search for the earliest stars and black holes has yielded a very weird, very red, puzzle

On its first crewed flight, troubling technical glitches with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft have left two astronauts in limbo onboard the International Space Station

Despite an eye-watering price tag, bringing pieces of Mars back to Earth promises to revolutionize our understanding of life’s place in the early solar system

China’s Chang’e 6 mission has successfully returned samples from the moon’s far side, opening a new phase of the nation’s lunar space race with the U.S.

An image of interstellar dust moving through the Milky Way’s magnetic field may help scientists learn more about the origin of galaxies