NASA's Perseverance rover has reached an impressive new milestone on Mars, completing the equivalent of a full marathon by driving 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers) across the Red Planet. It accomplished the feat in just five years and four months, reaching the distance on its 1,890th Martian day, less than half the time it took the previous record holder, NASA's Opportunity rover.

NASA is ramping up its lunar ambitions by awarding nearly $600 million for four commercial Moon landings planned for late 2028. Each mission will carry the same trio of science instruments to improve lunar navigation, study dangerous dust kicked up during landings, and map the Moon's radiation environment. The agency also revealed plans for new rovers, communication satellites, and additional cargo missions as it lays the groundwork for a permanent Moon Base.

Scientists have developed a new framework that could finally apply the laws of thermodynamics to real, ever-changing black holes instead of only perfectly stable ones. The advance may improve our understanding of black hole mergers, evaporation, and the powerful gravitational wave events detected by observatories like LIGO.

Dark matter may be far more complicated than scientists once believed. A new study suggests it could consist of at least two different kinds of particles that slowly separate over time, with heavier particles sinking toward the centers of galaxies and lighter ones drifting outward. This simple idea could explain several puzzling cosmic observations that have frustrated astronomers for years, from unusually diffuse dwarf galaxies to surprisingly dense dark matter clumps that bend light through gravitational lensing.

Researchers have recreated the physics of extracting energy from a spinning black hole using a stationary device that produces synthetic ultrafast rotation. The achievement transforms a long-standing theoretical idea into a practical experiment and could inspire new advances in optics, wireless communications, and quantum science.

A new study suggests spacecraft exhaust could quickly contaminate the moon's most scientifically valuable regions, potentially masking ancient clues about how life began on Earth. Researchers say future lunar missions should consider new ways to reduce and monitor this pollution before it becomes widespread.

A detailed independent study found that SpaceX's Starship is every bit as revolutionary as expected, while revealing both its impressive capabilities and its biggest remaining hurdles. It also introduces an ambitious European rocket concept that could offer a very different route to affordable super heavy launches.

Scientists have identified new clues that could help astronomers spot one of the most famous hypothetical alien megastructures: a Dyson sphere. The study finds that red dwarfs and white dwarfs are the most promising stars to examine, since advanced civilizations could potentially build energy-harvesting swarms around them more easily. These objects would stand out by glowing in infrared light instead of visible light, lacking the dusty signatures of ordinary stars, and possibly flickering in unusual ways.

A planet with one side permanently roasting and the other frozen in endless darkness might still have a chance of supporting life. Researchers found that heat inside a tidally locked exoplanet could circulate in a stable, continuous loop, helping moderate temperatures in certain regions. Their laboratory model suggests these worlds may be more hospitable than previously thought, despite their extreme surface conditions.

What if time doesn't actually exist until something changes? Scientists at the University of Birmingham created a tiny "mini universe" using 24,000 ultracold atoms and showed that the flow of time can emerge naturally from changes inside a quantum system, without relying on any external clock.

The hunt for ancient life on Mars just got an important test run. Scientists confirmed that the Rosalind Franklin rover's sophisticated instrument can detect subtle differences in two stable molecules that could preserve evidence of past life for billions of years. But the team also uncovered a surprise: organic molecules in the Murchison meteorite appear to have been contaminated by fossil fuel pollution during their journey through Earth's atmosphere.

Astronomers have uncovered 31 of the oldest known quasars, including the two earliest ever detected, shining from a time when the universe was only about 670 million years old. Powered by supermassive black holes billions of times the Sun’s mass, these incredibly bright objects challenge scientists’ understanding of how such enormous black holes formed so quickly after the Big Bang.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular red, white, and blue view of one of the Milky Way's oldest star clusters to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary. Hidden within the ancient cluster are clues to how exploding stars helped transform the young universe into one capable of forming planets and, eventually, life.

Hubble has captured a spectacular view of LH 95, where about 2,500 young stars are still on their journey to becoming full-fledged stars. Scientists discovered these growing stars can keep pulling in gas and dust for millions of years, extending an important stage of stellar development. The region also contains multiple generations of stars living side by side, offering fresh clues about how star formation unfolds over time.

Celebrating the United States' 250th anniversary, NASA released a stunning Hubble portrait of Messier 3, an ancient globular cluster with more than 500,000 stars. The remarkable cluster is helping scientists unravel the Milky Way's past thanks to its rare stars and possible origins in a long ago cosmic merger.

NASA is marking the United States' 250th birthday with four striking red, white, and blue images of deep space from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The collection features an exploded star, a stellar nursery, a galaxy where stars are rapidly forming, and a galaxy cluster that provides evidence for dark matter.

An unusual gravitational wave signal has renewed hopes that primordial black holes, long considered purely theoretical, may finally be within reach of discovery. If confirmed, they could solve one of astronomy's greatest mysteries by explaining the nature of dark matter.

Two newly confirmed "super-puff" planets are so diffuse that they are less dense than cotton candy, despite being about the size of Jupiter. Their rare orbital relationship and enormous, lightweight atmospheres could provide valuable clues about how some of the strangest planets in the galaxy come to exist.

A strange "chirping" signal from a distant supernova has revealed the birth of a magnetar, confirming that these incredibly magnetic neutron stars can power the universe's brightest stellar explosions. The discovery also marks the first time Einstein's general relativity has been used to explain the mechanics of a supernova.

Researchers have created an AI-based simulation that makes it much faster to model how neutron star mergers produce many of the universe's heaviest elements. The new tool could improve predictions of these powerful explosions while helping scientists better connect observations in space with experiments on Earth.

Astronomers may have witnessed one of the rarest and most dramatic cosmic events ever seen: a long-sought intermediate-mass black hole ripping apart a dense white dwarf star and devouring it. The Einstein Probe space telescope caught the explosion in its earliest moments, revealing an unusual sequence of intense X-ray flashes unlike anything seen in a typical gamma-ray burst.

Astronomers have released the largest gravitational wave catalog ever, revealing 161 new black hole collisions and pushing the total number of detections to 390. Among the highlights are the clearest gravitational wave signal ever recorded, the most accurate location of a black hole merger, and growing evidence that some black holes are the products of previous black hole mergers. With discoveries now arriving several times a week, gravitational wave astronomy is entering an exciting new era.

Ancient asteroid impacts may have done more than reshape Earth's surface—they could have helped spark life itself. New computer models show the collisions created enormous underground hydrothermal systems by cracking the planet's crust and allowing hot water to flow through it. These long-lasting, life-friendly environments may have covered much of the early Earth, turning cosmic destruction into an unexpected opportunity.

A new study suggests Earth may have been sending tiny hitchhikers to Venus for billions of years. Researchers found that asteroid impacts could launch microbes into space, where some might survive the journey and end up suspended in Venus' clouds. If future missions detect life there, there's a surprising chance it didn't originate on Venus at all—it may have come from Earth.

Researchers have created quantum control techniques that can make a system appear to run backward in time. By precisely managing quantum measurements, they can reshape the system's arrow of time and even harvest energy from the measurement process itself. The breakthrough could lead to more powerful quantum computers, quantum batteries, and other advanced technologies.