Years of testing, emergency systems and sensors have gone into protecting the Artemis II astronauts heading to the moon. (NASA via The New York Times) By KATRINA MILLER Rocket failures, oxygen leaks, space debris and scorching heat: These are just a few of the risks that NASA’s Artemis II astronauts face as the first humans to return to the moon in more than half a century. Since NASA first attempted to send people beyond the safety of Earth, spaceflight has been a death-defy

In an image provided by NASA, an artist’s concept of Phase 3 of the proposed moon base. After years of talking about lunar outposts in vague terms for sometime in the indefinite future, leaders of the space agency on Tuesday put a continuing American presence at the moon solidly on their road map for the coming decade, setting out specific plans and timelines. (NASA via The New York Times)  By KENNETH CHANG NASA is getting serious about building a base on the moon. After year

A photo provided by the Field Museum shows Matt von Konrat, the head of the botanical collections at the Field Museum, in his laboratory in Chicago, Feb. 26, 2026, examining tiny bits of dirt and moss collected in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., in 2009. A group of scientists and law enforcement officials are pointing to the role moss can play to help solve crimes. (Field Museum via The New York Times) By SAMANTHA DRAKE A remote forest in south central Pennsylvania seems to

An image provided by Joschua Knüppe shows a life reconstruction of the forearm of Manipulonyx reshetovi, a bird-like dinosaur. A fossil of the dinosaur was discovered in Mongolia in 1979. (Joschua Knüppe via The New York Times) By JACK TAMISIEA Under the cover of darkness 67 million years ago, a dog-size dinosaur crept up to the nest of a bigger, unsuspecting contemporary. Its goal: to snatch a large egg. The tiny thief had a handy hack to get to that meal: a multitooled fore

An image provided by NASA/Johns Hopkins APL shows the asteroid named Dimorphos. Dimorphos is about 525 feet around and orbits a larger parent asteroid, Didymos. (NASA/Johns Hopkins APL via The New York Times) By KATRINA MILLER In 2022, NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid named Dimorphos. The goal of this interplanetary smashup was to prove that if a killer space rock ever threatened Earth in the future, humans could deflect it and save our world. The

A photo provided by the Max Planck Institute shows Nobel Prize-winning Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo with a reconstructed Neanderthal skull. As a result of interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans tens of thousands of years ago, most people alive today carry a bit of Neanderthal DNA in their genome — and that residual DNA, in turn, is giving scientists a detailed look at the ancient sexual encounters that put it there. (Frank Vinken/Max Planck Institute via The New Yor

A field station of the Tromso Geophysical Observatory and the European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association, or EISCAT, project outside Tromso, Norway, Jan. 21, 2026. Norway’s northern region has led the scientific quest to understand the aurora borealis, with a 10,000-antenna radar system expected to begin the next phase of exploration this summer. (Michal Siarek/The New York Times) By ALEXA ROBLES-GIL The world’s first permanent northern lights observatory occupies a s

A photo provided by Dr. Axelle Delaunay shows a baboon family in Namibia. Young primates in a southern African nature park were observed to constantly interfere when their mother was giving attention to a younger brother or sister. (Dr. Axelle Delaunay via The New York Times)  By ANNIE ROTH Ever been jealous of your brother or sister for getting too much attention from your mom or dad? Scientists believe you’re not the only creature in the animal kingdom to feel that way. A t

A photo provided by Ape Initiative shows Kanzi, a bonobo living at the Ape Initiative in Des Moines, Iowa, was able to play make-believe with researchers studying the ape imagination. In a playtime experiment, scientists found that apes, our closest living relatives, have the capacity for make-believe, too. (Ape Initiative via The New York Times)  By ALEXA ROBLES-GIL Having an imaginary friend, playing house or daydreaming about the future were long considered uniquely human

Engineer Paul Anker checks on the supply of hot water for a drilling operation at Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, Jan. 30, 2026. An attempt to drill through Thwaites Glacier is foiled; scientists lost their instruments within Antarctica’s most dangerously unstable glacier, though not before getting a glimpse at the warming waters underneath. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times) By RAYMOND ZHONG A daring attempt to study Antarctica’s fast-melting Thwaites Glacier collapsed over t