space

Two stellar lunar events are happening this August, with a sturgeon supermoon on Aug. 1 and then a rare blue supermoon on Aug. 30.

A previous forecast predicted a geomagnetic storm happening Wednesday and Thursday, but the sun's activity has greatly weakened over the past few days.

"Shields Up!" the Cassini craft's Twitter feed announced Wednesday. If all goes well, new images of the ringed planet will reach Earth early Thursday.

The private company sees Thursday's achievement as a step toward cheaper flights into deep space. The aerospace industry essentially has been throwing away its hefty and expensive rockets.

You may be inclined to see a ravioli, a walnut or an empanada, but it's tough to deny that Pan's distinctive ridge makes a tasty impression. The images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft Thursday.

NOAA's new weather satellite is carrying the first lightning detector ever parked in orbit over Earth. It has sent back its first images of real-time lightning storms in the Western Hemisphere.

Cernan flew in space three times, took the second American spacewalk, and was just as thrilled to walk on the moon as if he had been the first to do it.

The space station has a bathroom. But a spacesuit, not so much. So far, astronauts have relied on diapers, but NASA calls that a "very temporary" fix. It is offering $30,000 for a better idea.

A Russian Soyuz space capsule touched down in Kazakhstan on Sunday morning local time, delivering Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi safely back to Earth.

It's not exactly close — 25 trillion miles from Earth, say the scientists who spotted it. But that might be near enough for further exploration. It's about Earth's size, with mild temperatures.