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Science

  • The Artemis II crew takes questions from ABC News and Fox News on Thursday.
    NASA
    Get caught up on the Artemis II crew’s moon journey. What’s happened so far and what’s next
  • art002e009286 (April 6, 2026) – As the Artemis II crew came close to passing behind the Moon and experiencing a planned loss of signal, they captured this image of a crescent Earth setting on the Moon’s limb. 
The edge of the visible surface of the Moon is called the “lunar limb.” Seen from afar, it almost looks like a circular arc – except when backlit, as in other images captured by the Artemis II crew.

In this photo, the dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime, while Australia and Oceania are in the daylight. In the foreground, the Ohm crater is visible, with terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks. Peaks such as these form in complex craters when the lunar surface is liquified on impact, and the liquefied surface splashes upward during the crater’s formation.
    NASA
    Heading home: The riskiest part of the Artemis II moon mission is still ahead
  • art002e013356 (April 7, 2026) – The Artemis II crew – (from left) Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Pilot Victor Glover, and Commander Reid Wiseman – pause for a group photo inside the Orion spacecraft on their way home. Following a swing around the far side of the Moon on April 6, 2026, the crew exited the lunar sphere of influence (the point at which the Moon's gravity has a stronger pull on Orion than the Earth's) on April 7, and are headed back to Earth for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on April 10.
    NASA
    Why NASA sent ‘organ chips’ of the Artemis II crew into space
  • The Orion heat shield uses tiles of the ablative material Avcoat to protect its crew during re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. An ablator burns off in a controlled fashion, transferring heat away from the spacecraft. Orion’s heat shield will experience temperatures of around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit – about half as hot at the Sun – during its return.
    Isaac Watson/NASA
    The Artemis II astronauts are heading home. The biggest risks could still lie ahead
  • An artist's representation of what the animal may have looked like.
    University of Reading
    The ‘oldest octopus’ in the world isn’t an octopus after all, scientists find
  • The Artemis II crew takes interviews from the Orion capsule in outer space. From left, Reid Wiseman, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover.
    NASA
    Highlights from Artemis II reveal life in space is even weirder than we thought
  • Earth sets behind the moon on Monday, April 6, during the lunar flyby of the Artemis II mission.
    NASA
    Would you go to the moon? Board an alien spacecraft? What nearly 80 years of polls say about US attitudes on space
  • Trey
    Courtesy Joopiter
    Dinosaur skeletons are selling for millions. Researchers fear science is missing out
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  • Early examples of Native American dice.
    Robert Madden
    Prehistoric dice suggest that Native Americans may have been gaming since the last ice age
  • (April 4, 2026) - NASA astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft's main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the Moon.
    NASA
    ‘It really bent your mind’: The life-altering phenomenon astronauts experience in space

Editor's picks

  • 20251210-jane-austen-mystery-death.jpg
    Photo Illustration by Alberto Mier/CNN/Universal History Archive/Getty Images; Gillian Pullinger/Alamy Stock Photo; Will Dax/Solent News/Shutterstock
    Jane Austen’s cause of death has remained a mystery. But her letters and books offer clues
  • Pilot Amelia Earhart poses for a portrait in and airplane in circa 1936. (Photo courtesty Library of Congress/Getty Images)
    Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
    An object in a satellite image defies explanation. Could it solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries?
  • O’Neill Cylinder interior provides a 20-mile vista. Children born here would think it totally normal to have “upside down” land areas overhead.
    Rick Guidice/NASA
    Two billionaires have very different — and equally wild — visions of a future in space. Is either possible?
  • fig-25.jpg
    Susanne Muth/Dirk Mariaschk/Elis Ruhemann/Pompeii Reset Project/Humboldt University of Berlin
    An ancient stone staircase seemed to lead nowhere. Now it’s revealing the ‘lost Pompeii’
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Space

Show all

  • EARTHSET. 
April 6, 2026.

Humanity, from the other side. First photo from the far side of the Moon. Captured from Orion as Earth dips beyond the lunar horizon.
    NASA
    NASA releases new ‘Earthset’ and eclipse images taken during historic flyby of the moon
  • art002e009210 (April 6, 2026) - Before going to sleep on flight day 5, the Artemis II crew snapped one more photo of the Moon, as it drew close in the window of the Orion spacecraft. Orion and the four humans aboard entered the lunar sphere of influence at 12:37 a.m. EDT on April 6, at the tail end of the fifth day of their mission. That marked the point at which the Moon's gravity had a stronger pull on the spacecraft than the Earth's. Artemis II's closet approach to the Moon will come on flight day 6, as they swing around the far side before beginning their journey back to Earth. About an hour after entering the lunar sphere of influence, Artemis II Mission Specialist Christina Koch said, "We are now falling to the Moon rather than rising away from Earth. It is an amazing milestone!"
    NASA
    Artemis II astronauts will see parts of the moon no human has before. Here’s how
  • (April 4, 2026) - NASA astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft's main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the Moon.
    NASA
    More than halfway to the moon, the Artemis II astronauts grappled with a toilet problem
  • Artemis II lunar mission astronauts pause outside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building during their Countdown Demonstration Test at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on December 20, 2025. (L-R) Canadian Space Agency astronaut and NASA Artemis II Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, NASA astronaut and Artemis II Mission Specialist Christina Koch, NASA astronaut and Artemis II pilot Victor Glover and NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman. Designed to test launch-day procedures, the test is a dress rehearsal of what will happen on launch day, which is currently targeted for no earlier than February 1, 2026. (Photo by Gregg Newton / AFP via Getty Images)
    Gregg Newton/AFP/Getty Images
    4 astronauts are on an unprecedented path around the moon. But why aren’t they landing?

Archaeology

Show all

  • A view of the excavation site inside the church in Maastricht, the Netherlands
    Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters
    Archaeologist may have uncovered the remains of D’Artagnan, the famed French musketeer
  • The blue-and-white porcelain is intricately decorated.
    Michael Flecker/Science Direct
    14th century shipwreck reveals huge cargo of rare Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain
  • The Adorant figurine from Geißenklösterle Cave, approximately 40,000 years old, consists of a small ivory plate bearing an anthropomorphic figure and multiple sequences of notches and dots. The application of these marks suggests a notational system, most notably in the rows of dots on the back of the plate.
    Hendrik Zwietasch/Landesmuseum Württemberg
    Symbols found carved into 40,000-year-old artifacts may be precursor to writing
  • A representation of a Carthaginian battle elephant during the Second Punic War.
    Prisma/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
    Ancient bone may be first physical evidence of Hannibal’s ‘war machine’ elephants in Western Europe

Life

Show all

  • Members of a sperm whale family near the Caribbean island of Dominica are part of a clan that's culturally distinct from others. Each clan communicates in its own dialect of click patterns, like Morse code.
    Brian J. Skerry/National Geographic/Courtesy Project Ceti
    ‘And then we saw the little head.’ Scientists witness rare sperm whale birth
  • This spectacular pit viper is among the new species that were discovered in Cambodia’s karsts – ancient limestone cliffs with hidden cave systems. While its official name has not been decided, the “pit” refers to the heat-sensitive organ on its head, which it uses to detect and track down warm-blooded prey.
    Phyroum Chourn/Fauna & Flora
    Pit viper, flying snake and geckos among new species uncovered in Cambodian caves
  • TOPSHOT - This photo taken on January 14, 2025 shows mosquitoes in the insectary room in the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control in Phnom Penh. Cambodia is stepping up a "last mile" push to wipe out the mosquito-borne disease, focusing on hard-to-reach pockets of population in remote, forested or mountainous areas. (Photo by TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP) / To go with 'CAMBODIA-HEALTH-MALARIA,FOCUS' by Suy SE (Photo by TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP via Getty Images)
    Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images
    DNA from a tiny but mighty insect could help reveal the timeline for prehistoric humans
  • FKt251103-MissionControl-20251114-Naranjo-09289.jpg
    Monika Naranjo-Shepard/Schmidt Ocean Institute
    Is all complex life on Earth related to a concept from Norse mythology? Kind of

Paleontology

Show all

  • The Haootia-like fossil (an early cnidarian – the phylum that includes jellyfish, sea anemones and
corals) from the Jiangchuan Biota (~554-539 million years old)
    Gaorong Li
    Fossils from China show complex life evolved millions of years earlier than once thought
  • <em>Spinosaurus mirabilis</em> snaring the coelacanth <em>Mawsonia</em> some 95 million years ago from a river in northern Africa in what is now the Sahara Desert in Niger. A scimitar-shaped head crest and interdigitating teeth characterize this wading giant, one of the last-surviving spinosaurid species
    Dani Navarro/University of Chicago
    Newly discovered ‘hell heron’ adds evidence in longstanding dinosaur debate
  • Artist impression of what Prototaxites would have look like in life
    Matt Humpage
    The largest life-form on land 400 million years ago was one that scientists can’t explain
  • Tyrannosaurus rex is known as the king of the dinosaurs.
    Roger Harris/Science Photo Library RF/Getty Images
    Fossil analysis changes what paleontologists know about how long T. rex took to grow full size
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