Will we soon see potentially habitable exoplanets more clearly?

Because stars are so much brighter than their planets, we've barely begun to glimpse distant exoplanets, or planets orbiting distant stars. Now a new technology promises to provide better imaging of these potentially habitable exoworlds.

See Curiosity’s epic new selfie from Mars

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has taken a beautiful new selfie.

Meet the giant exoplanet where it rains iron

The temperatures on the day side of giant exoplanet WASP-76b are scorching, high enough for metals to be vaporized. But the night side is cooler, and winds carry an iron "rain" from the day side to the night side.

What’s cool about Curiosity’s discovery of organic molecules on Mars

The Curiosity rover has found organic molecules called thiophenes, which, on Earth, are associated with biological systems. Are they evidence for once-living microbes on Mars?

Have the first proteins been found in meteorites?

Researchers say they've discovered the first complete proteins inside 2 meteorites. It's tantalizing, since proteins play a key role in the cells of living creatures. But will the results hold up to scrutiny?

What if super-puff planets have rings?

All 4 of the gas giant planets in our solar system - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune - are known to have rings. Could many of the so-called super-puff or cotton candy exoplanets have rings instead of super low densities?

And now, a word from Juno at Jupiter

Juno arrived at Jupiter in 2016. It's in a 53-day orbit around the planet. Close sweeps past the planet are called "perijoves" (peri means "near"). Here are some spectacular images from the most recent sweep, Perijove 25, in February.

Curiosity rover on Mars snags highest-resolution panorama yet

This just in ... a new super-cool composite from Curiosity on Mars. The panorama contains more than 1,000 images taken last Thanksgiving and assembled over the past few months ... 1.8 billion new pixels of Martian landscape!

The force is strong in neutron stars

Physicists at MIT analyzed data from earlier experiments in particle accelerators, in order to probe the workings of the strong nuclear force that operates inside atoms. Their work sheds light on this force - one of the 4 fundamental forces of nature - and also illuminates the structure of a neutron star’s core.

Could K2-18b be habitable after all?

A new study by researchers at Cambridge University suggests that the giant exoplanet K2-18b - a mini-Neptune - may be more potentially habitable than previously thought.