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High in the sky, sunlit wisps remain aglow even after sundown. This summer, a surprising number of such noctilucent, or “night-shining,” clouds have been spotted in the Northern Hemisphere — and, unusually, as far south as Oklahoma and New Mexico, scientists report.

These clouds typically float in the mesosphere about 80 kilometers above Earth’s surface, and are visible at high latitudes...

The photo album of baby planets may be emptier than astronomers thought. 

New research is prompting debate about the theory that gaps in planet-forming disks around young stars mark spaces where planets are being created in real time. It turns out that the planets that, according to simulations, would grow up in those gaps don’t resemble the full-grown planets observed around more mature...

As sea levels continue to rise, many coastal U.S. cities will see an increasing number of days each year that streets flood during high tides, according to the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. For many parts of the country, particularly along the U.S. East Coast, that increase has already ramped up over the last two decades.

From 2000 to 2019, these “sunny-day...

I’m not allowed to touch the moon rocks.

In the room where NASA stores the samples that Apollo astronauts brought to Earth decades ago, I peer at rocks and trays of dirt through glass. But my tour guides are firm: Nobody touches the moon rocks.

This is the pristine sample lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Being here is a big deal for me. I’ve spent years looking at...