The failure of Boeing's Starliner capsule has left two astronauts stuck in space for months – but also proved how private spaceflight can go right

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six strange worlds the size of planets that formed like stars – and the smallest may be building its own miniature solar system

The Milky Way may be home to strange black holes from the first moments of the universe, and the best candidates are the three closest black holes to Earth

Radio astronomers teamed up with SpaceX to find a promising solution for helping expensive telescopes avoid interference from thousands of Starlink satellites

Astronomers have identified patterns within the motion of stars stretching across the Milky Way, hinting at the presence of a vast wave

After a star explodes, the resulting supernova remnant collapses in on itself and could begin the cycle again, creating generations of stars enriched with heavy elements

Sam Howell tells New Scientist why NASA is so keen to visit Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, Europa, and how the mission could help us figure out the likelihood of life elsewhere in the cosmos

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

After 25 years in orbit, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is under threat. We need to protect this monument to human ingenuity, argues Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Past observations have indicated that the icy moon of Jupiter has a vast subsurface ocean. Launching in October, NASA’s Europa Clipper will go there in search of evidence that it could support life

A radio signal detected in 1977, sometimes claimed as evidence for aliens, may have been caused by a laser-like beam of microwave radiation

Lightning strikes near Earth give rise to electromagnetic waves called “whistlers” that can carry energy high enough above our planet to pose a risk to satellites and astronauts

Mars rocks that were blasted off the surface of the Red Planet millions of years ago have been traced back to craters where they originated, which could transform our understanding of Mars’s volcanism and evolution

Space exploration has long been a staple of sci-fi films and TV, yet most play fast and loose with the laws of physics, and scientific fact often couldn't be further from the truth

Planets that orbit close to their parent stars are blasted with radiation and contorted by gravity – and the exoplanet TOI-6255b might be the most extreme example yet

Researchers recently found a possible reservoir of liquid water more than 11 kilometres below Mars's surface – the latest in a long series of potential water discoveries on the Red Planet, hinting at its temperate past

On 19 and 20 August, the JUICE mission will make the first ever attempt to get a gravitational boost from both Earth and the moon on its way to Jupiter

In the centre of a distant galaxy, a supermassive black hole has swallowed up a star 9 times the sun’s mass in the biggest and brightest such cosmic meal we’ve ever seen

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft had so many problems during its first crewed launch to the International Space Station that NASA officials aren’t sure whether it will be able to bring its crew back home as planned

If we want to terraform the Red Planet to make it better able to host microbial life, tiny rods of iron and aluminium may be the answer