After 2 weeks of scrubs, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasted off October 6, 2020, carrying 60 more Starlink satellites to orbit. The rocket successfully landed at sea 9 minutes later. Video of the launch and landing here, plus steps taken to reduce the bright satellites' effect on astronomy.

Gorgeous, detailed image of the Carina Nebula, a star nursery approximately 8,500 light-years away, as observed with the Gemini South telescope in Chile.

The discovery of near-perfectly preserved billion-year-old Martian dunes is helping scientists to unravel the geologic and climatic history of the red planet.

For the first time, astronomers have obtained an image of the very young gas giant exoplanet Beta Pictoris c, 63 light-years away. Its sibling, Beta Pictoris b, was discovered and photographed in 2008.

All these years, NASA scientists have laboriously sifted through spacecraft images to identify and classify markings on Mars. Now they're using a new "classifier," powered by artificial intelligence. What takes a human 40 minutes takes the AI tool an average of just 5 seconds.

In a fun cosmic coincidence, researchers used old Kepler spacecraft data to discover an Earth-sized exoplanet with an orbital period of 3.14 days, a number that matches the mathematical constant pi.

Where are the other most promising locations for extraterrestrial life in our solar system?

Solar storms pose risks for society, but more accurate space weather forecasts appear to be coming soon. A team of researchers in Japan has developed a physics-based method for predicting large solar flares, including powerful and potentially dangerous X-flares.

Scientists develop a new way to search for potentially habitable exoplanets by measuring the amount of phosphorus in their stars. Such planets should also have abundant phosphorus - necessary for life on Earth - increasing the chances for life.

While extragalactic "rogue" planets - not orbiting any star - have been reported before, the new exoplanet is the first to be detected orbiting stars in another galaxy. And not just any galaxy ... but M51, the beautiful Whirlpool, 23 million light-years away.