Stories by Alexandra Witze

Donald Trump wants U.S. astronauts back on the Moon. But his ambitious plan faces formidable political, financial and technical challenges

NASA’s Curiosity rover reports the highest-ever reading of the gas at the planet’s surface

Next-generation mobile technology could interfere with crucial satellite-based Earth observations

NASA′s InSight lander hears ripples of seismic energy rippling through Mars

Researchers are narrowing down their measurements of how long the subatomic particle survives on its own

Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft did not find the gas in red planet’s atmosphere during its first months of operation

NASA mission finds asteroid Bennu littered with big boulders and spraying out particles

The president wants to cut spending at the National Institutes of Health and Environmental Protection Agency, but it is not clear whether Congress will go along

A second wave of closures looms as the government funding fight barrels towards a record-breaking fourth week

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has identified at least eight planets, including one with a mass more than 20 times that of Earth

Bounty includes second known example of a repeating burst

Close-up images from NASA’s New Horizons probe show the space rock has two distinct lobes

U.S. spacecraft aims to return the largest trove of space dirt to Earth since NASA’s final Apollo mission in the 1970s

The warming power of the sun could help to explain why the level of gas in the atmosphere changes with the seasons

A malfunctioning gyroscope has temporarily hobbled the aging space observatory

Zombie satellites, rocket shards and collision debris are creating major traffic risks in orbits around the planet. Researchers are working to reduce the threats posed by more than 20,000 objects in space

A neural-network analysis outperforms the method scientists typically use to work out where these tremors will strike

Data from the long-awaited Aeolus mission will address a major gap in the global forecasting system 

Nomination of Kelvin Droegemeier could end long drought at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

An observation decades in the making confirms predictions about how light behaves in an immense gravitational field

Nathan Myhrvold argues that the scientific approach of the landmark NEOWISE space-rock mission is deeply flawed

After more than a decade of searching, scientists finally detect the element billowing out of a gas giant

NASA’s Mars InSight mission will listen for seismic activity to uncover details of Red Planet’s mysterious core

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is designed to spot planets orbiting nearby bright stars