China launches crewed lunar mission while SpaceX's Starship completes 12th test flight; Next Generation Very Large Array promises new era in radio astronomy

China launched its Shenzhou-23 mission, placing an astronaut in orbit for a year as a key step toward Beijing's goal of landing people on the moon by 2030, advancing its competitive lunar exploration program.

SpaceX's Starship completed its 12th test flight on Friday, with the upgraded rocket launching successfully but experiencing a fiery landing in the Indian Ocean; the spacecraft is critical to NASA's plans for lunar astronaut missions.

The Next Generation Very Large Array, featuring 263 antennas spread across the U.S. and Mexico, is set to join a new wave of radio astronomy and revolutionize how scientists explore the universe.

A rare blue moon will occur on May 31st, the second full moon of the calendar month, highlighting how human calendar systems are defined by celestial movements rather than lunar cycles.

Two space shuttle-era spacewalkers have been inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame, honoring their contributions to spaceflight history and orbital operations.

Stephen Hawking's newly revealed diaries show his father Frank worried the young physicist 'does not study much' and had 'little initiative,' contrasting sharply with his later groundbreaking contributions to cosmology.

La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, the world's only active urban ice age excavation site, is undergoing a major renovation for the first time in nearly 50 years to preserve its mammoth fossils and paleontological discoveries.

Questions have been raised about the credentials of Jim O'Neill, nominated to lead the National Science Foundation, with the American Association for the Advancement of Science requesting a public hearing on his appointment.

The Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly has become functionally extinct after the last captive caterpillar died; the species has not been observed in the wild since 2022.