New research shows that Homo erectus, an ancestor of human beings, lived as recently as 108,000 to 117,000 years ago in Ngandong, on the Indonesian island of Java.

From the 1st landing on the moon's far side to the 1st actual image of a black hole, here’s a quick roundup of 9 of the stories our readers enjoyed most in 2019.

Wow! This was a tough choice. Thank you to all who submitted photos in 2019! Here are a few of our favorites.

"Anybody besides me notice that the past two decades have been nameless?"

Hundreds of thousands of people from 112 countries helped select names for distant exoplanets and their stars. So, for example, the exoplanet formerly known as HAT-P-36b - about 1,000 light-years away - now also carries the name Bran, from an Irish legend.

Ideas discussed at last month’s International Astronomical Union symposium in Tokyo include projects using smartphones and low-cost battery-powered equipment.

Friday - December 13 - comes exactly 13 weeks after the year's first Friday the 13th in September. Zoinks! By the way, a fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia.

The burning rainforest releases black carbon into the atmosphere, which, according to a growing number of scientific studies, directly contributes to the melting of glaciers.

In September, India hoped to become the 4th nation to soft land on the moon successfully with its Chandrayaan 2 mission. Moments before touchdown, the mission's Vikram lander crashed. Now the lander has been found again.

Researchers collected DNA samples from 104 Labrador retrievers over a 16-year period. They compared changes in their DNA samples against DNA previously collected from humans. The result? A better sense of what a "dog year" really means.