Elana Glowatz

The patch is supposed to commemorate progress in science and research made over the past year. Does imagery from a fictional universe — including that universe’s spherical symbol of evil — really accomplish that goal?

An asteroid that passed close to Earth is so big that it has two moons orbiting around it.

Solar eruptions are going to cause a geomagnetic storm on Earth, and you might see auroras in the lower 48 states of the U.S.

It’s the circle of space life: Moons orbiting Uranus crash into each other and smash into tiny pieces, and their celestial remains feed the planet’s rings.

Astronomers think there might be more planets, specifically gas giants like Jupiter, orbiting in the alien solar system Trappist-1 and waiting to be discovered.

Hurricane Irma has powered up into a Category 5 storm as it batters the Caribbean. Here’s what it looks like from the air.

If you want to measure the size of the solar system, first you have to define it.

While men were hanging out at home, prehistoric women were journeying around Europe in search for a better life.

Almost 30 young whales that washed up and died in northern Europe may have gotten lost during solar storms.

Scientists are saying experiments that measure intelligence in apes compared to humans are biased, so we don’t really know how smart they are.

China and India have more people than anywhere else in the world, and it’s been that way for hundreds of years.

Human footprints from millions of years ago could rewrite the history of how we evolved and spread through the continents.

Scientists have found some of the oldest bones ever discovered in the Americas, evidence of how long ago ancient peoples settled this part of the world.

Paleontologists have found a quicksand tomb of raptors but need public help to dig out the dinosaur fossils.

A superbug killed five people even after doctors gave them strong antibiotics that are considered last-resort treatment.

Scientists have turned frequency data that NASA’s Cassini spacecraft collected from Saturn’s moons and rings into music that follows the spacecraft’s life-ending dive into the planet on Sept. 15.

Ancient whales had teeth as sharp as a carnivore on land, designed to tear apart their prey.

Snake enthusiasts took a video of a boa giving birth to its young and people are shocked that not all snakes lay eggs.

Scientists are unearthing a rare triceratops fossil after a construction crew hit the dinosaur skeleton while digging just outside Denver.

NASA’s moon camera took a photo of Earth during the total solar eclipse, as the moon’s shadow was sweeping across the United States.

The Caspian Sea is Earth’s largest inland body of water, but will it stay that way? Science shows it’s evaporating.

NASA’s expensive alien-hunting telescope is in Houston at the Johnson Space Center, where it is riding out the storm in a frozen chamber.

After a mass extinction event leading into the Jurassic period, Earth’s ocean was a dead zone with very little oxygen in the water.

Scientists have found hidden ancient texts written in rare languages and by famous historical figures at a monastery’s library in Egypt.

A marine reptile from the age of the dinosaurs was pregnant when it died, and scientists got a good look at the embryo in its fossil.

Black holes will one day disappear, but that contradicts what we think we know about physics.

Doctors reattached both of a woman’s arms after a train cut them off at a French train station.

A new dinosaur species from southern Africa has a weird relationship with other dinosaurs, and it’s because of how the continents split apart 100 million years ago.

Shortly before Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he almost died when the lunar landing vehicle he was test flying crashed and exploded.