CNN – World

By Ashley Strickland and Jackie Wattles, CNN Russian space agency Roscosmos will launch an uncrewed spacecraft, Soyuz MS-23, to the International Space Station to serve as a return vehicle for cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio after the vehicle in which they launched in September sustained damage in space. The

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN The world’s oceans were the warmest on record for the fourth year in row in 2022, a troubling sign of the climate crisis caused by humans pumping heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. A study by an international team of scientists from 16 institutes worldwide found that the five hottest years for

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Astronomers might have solved the mystery behind an unusually brightening star. University of Washington doctoral student Anastasios Tzanidakis and research assistant professor of astronomy James Davenport were searching for “stars behaving strangely” when they received an alert about a potential stellar oddity from the Gaia spacecraft. The space observatory, launched by

By Jackie Wattles, CNN A rocket operated by a California-based start-up failed near the coast of Alaska Tuesday, marking yet another mishap for companies hoping to offer their services to launch scores of small satellites into orbit. The privately held ABL Space Systems attempted to launch its RS1 rocket at 1:27 p.m. local time (5:27

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Two supermassive black holes have been spotted feasting on cosmic materials as two galaxies in distant space merge — and are the closest to colliding black holes astronomers have ever observed. Astronomers spotted the pair while using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array of telescopes, or ALMA, in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN A recently discovered comet will soon make an appearance in the night sky for the first time in 50,000 years. Discovered on March 2, 2022 by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility’s wide-field survey camera at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, the comet will make its closest approach

By Katie Hunt, CNN A defunct NASA satellite has fallen back to Earth after 38 years orbiting the planet. The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, known as ERBS, was launched in 1984 aboard space shuttle Challenger. Until 2005, data from ERBS helped researchers investigate how Earth absorbed and radiated energy from the Sun, and measured ozone,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Welcome to a new year, where fresh wonder already awaits. Rome has often been called the Eternal City. Ancient Romans took pride in their metropolis and viewed it as an unshakable pinnacle, and poets such as Virgil and Ovid made similar references in their works to perpetuate this idea. The imperial

By Ashley Strickland, CNN January’s full moon will light up the sky on Friday, and will be visible all around the world. It will reach peak illumination around 6:08 p.m. ET Friday, rising in the east as the sun sets in the US, according to EarthSky. The full moon is considered a micromoon because it

By Issy Ronald, CNN An Irish national is facing drug charges in Australia after allegedly importing about 120 grams (4.2 ounces) of cocaine inside six, internally concealed Kinder Surprise capsules, according to authorities. Inside milk chocolate Kinder Surprise eggs are non-edible, yellow capsules which each contain a small plastic toy. The man was taken to

By Ashley Strickland and Jackie Wattles, CNN This year promises to be out of this world when it comes to space missions, launches and the next steps in cosmic exploration. In 2023, NASA will kick off a trek to a metal world, a spacecraft will drop off unprecedented asteroid samples on Earth, a historic moon

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Astronomers glimpsed a stellar nursery in a new light, thanks to the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy in Chile. The VISTA telescope, located at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Antofagasta, Chile, observed the Sh2-54 Nebula in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. While visible