Among the billions and billions of stars in the sky, where should astronomers look for infant Earths where life might develop?

Scientists have discovered an invisible shield roughly 7,200 miles above Earth that blocks so-called “killer electrons,” which can fry satellites and degrade space systems during intense solar storms. 

A new model suggests volcanic activity in Mars’ distant past spewed enough greenhouse gases to warm the atmosphere and melt the ice.

These two infrared images of C/2013 (Comet Siding Spring) were taken by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on Oct. 19, 2014. Comet Siding Spring — an Oort Cloud comet that may contain material from the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago — was making its first voyage through the inner solar system. CRISM and many other instruments and spacecraft combined to provide an unprecedented data set for an Oort Cloud comet.

While studying the atmosphere on Saturn’s moon Titan, scientists discovered intriguing zones of organic molecules unexpectedly shifted away from its north and south poles. These misaligned features seem to defy conventional thinking about Titan’s windy atmosphere, which should quickly smear out such off-axis concentrations.

Astronomers using data from three of NASA's space telescopes — Hubble, Spitzer, and Kepler — have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapor on a gaseous planet outside our solar system. The planet is about the size of Neptune, making it the smallest for which molecules of any kind have been detected.

In the beginning, or at least following the Big Bang more than 14 billion years ago, there was hydrogen, some helium and a little bit of lithium. A grand total of three elements.

Future asteroid mining operations and how we deal with an impending strike could be influenced by research on a potential NASA mission that's being done by team that includes a University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) scientist.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of researchers reports the first-ever detection of molecular gas -- the fuel for star formation -- in two galaxies that were previously rocked by gamma ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the Universe. These new observations revealed that the molecular gas was concentrated toward the centers of the galaxies, while the GRBs occurred in unusual environments that were surprisingly bereft of gas yet rich in dust. 

Maintaining astronaut bone and muscle health in microgravity is an ongoing concern for NASA, and now the agency is “forcing” the issue with a new investigation.