Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But first, they need to know ...

Previous efforts to map the galaxy's dust were challenged by limited data, but the Gaia mission has provided a treasure trove ...

Its mission? To create a 3D map of one-third of the sky—the largest such map ever made. This “cosmic atlas,” as it’s also called, will be the culmination of six years of observations with ...

Voluminous clouds of cosmic dust permeate our galaxy, but only recently has software allowed detailed observations of the ...

In the late 1970s, Saturn’s odd moon Titan, a hazy orange world, was expecting visitors — first, NASA’s Pioneer 11 probe, then the twin Voyager spacecraft. Most moons are airless or boast little more ...