All Stories by Lisa Grossman
- Space
The 2024 New York City meteorite contains amino acids
The brine-formed meteorite that crashed into a New Jersey roof in 2024 could teach us about how life first arrived on Earth.
- Astronomy
A quasar breaks the record for most distant supermassive black hole
The Euclid space telescope discovery could help researchers understand how black holes grew so massive so quickly in the early universe.
- Planetary Science
Meet the Milky Way’s puffiest planets
Two “superpuff” planets orbiting a sunlike star over 1,000 light-years from Earth are as big as Jupiter and as dense as cotton candy.
- Space
This space telescope is falling. A robotic spacecraft may save it
A private rocket mission aims to boost NASA’s Swift telescope before its orbit decays, extending its hunt for gamma-ray bursts.
- Planetary Science
NASA seems to be backing away from hunting for life on Mars
Viking 1 kicked off the search for Martian life 50 years ago. Now NASA’s shifting priorities are putting the quest in limbo.
- Space
NASA declares MAVEN, its Mars atmosphere orbiter, dead
Over more than a decade at Mars, the orbiter revealed how the solar wind strips away the planet’s atmosphere — and why the world lost its water.
- Planetary Science
Europa may not vent water into space after all
The debate could reopen in 2030 when NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft gets the closest view of the icy moon’s surface.
- Space
Solar flares may show predictable warning signs hours before erupting
Scientists spotted patterns hours before a major solar flare, a discovery that could help forecast dangerous eruptions.
- Planetary Science
An ancient moonpocalypse may explain Neptune’s odd moon Nereid
Neptune’s oddball moon Nereid may be the sole remnant of an earlier system, formed near the planet rather than being pulled in from afar.
- Planetary Science
A small object past Pluto may have a thin atmosphere
A brief stellar eclipse suggests the tiny 2002 XV93 has a thin atmosphere — a first for any solar system body farther from the sun than Pluto.
- Space
Artemis II ends its historic lunar journey
After looping around the moon, the Artemis II crew — and their capsule’s heat shield — passed the mission’s final major test: coming home.
- Space
Even before splashdown, Artemis II is delivering a scientific treasure trove
The Artemis II moon flyby may be over, but the hunt for scientific treasures in the trove of data collected is just starting.
