Alan Boyle

CERN Adds a New Particle to Large Hadron Collider's Subatomic Zoo

March 18, 2026

Scientists at Europe's CERN research center say the Large Hadron Collider's LHCb experiment has discovered a "doubly charmed" particle that's like a proton, but four times as weighty.

Scientists Find Evidence of Worlds Colliding ... 11,000 Light-Years Away

March 12, 2026

Astronomers say unusual readings from a star system 11,000 light-years away suggest that two of the planets circling the star crashed into each other, creating a huge, light-obscuring cloud of rocks and dust.

AI Could Make Alien Contact More Likely for SETI's 'Project Hail Mary'

March 11, 2026

A new movie called "Project Hail Mary" tells the story of an unlikely astronaut who teams up with an alien to deal with a common cosmic threat. In the latest Fiction Science podcast, SETI astronomer Seth Shostak provides a status report on the real-world quest for alien contact.

Phew! NASA Rules Out Asteroid Smashup on the Moon in 2032

March 05, 2026

Here’s one less thing to worry about — or to look forward to: NASA has ruled out any chance that an asteroid called 2024 YR4 will hit the moon in 2032.

Report Blames NASA and Boeing for Botched Starliner Flight Test

February 20, 2026

Nearly two years after Boeing’s botched Starliner mission to the International Space Station, NASA put the mishap in the same category as the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters — and said the spacecraft wouldn’t carry another crew until dozens of corrective actions are taken.

Occupy Mars? Or the Moon? Get a Reality Check on Elon Musk's Plans

February 17, 2026

SpaceX founder Elon Musk now says he wants to build a city on the moon before building a city on Mars. Is either scenario realistic? In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, biologist Scott Solomon, the author of a new book titled "Becoming Martian," does a reality check on humanity's prospects for living on other worlds.

Elon Musk Lays Out a New Vision of AI Satellites as SpaceX Acquires xAI

February 03, 2026

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says he’s making space-based artificial intelligence the “immediate focus” of a newly expanded company that not only builds rockets and satellites, but also controls xAI’s generative-AI software and the X social-media platform. That’s the upshot of Musk's announcement that SpaceX has acquired xAI.

NASA Faces Another Shift in Its Leadership — and in Its Vision

November 15, 2025

The next few months are likely to bring a dramatic transition for NASA, under the leadership of a new administrator who has new ideas about changing the course of the space agency.

Last Stop in a Literary Grand Tour Portrays Pluto the Way It Really Is

October 31, 2025

NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto has forced astronomers to rewrite their textbooks — but that’s not all: In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, space scientist Les Johnson explains how New Horizons forced him to rewrite "Pluto," the final novel in Ben Bova's Grand Tour series.

X-59 Super-Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Makes Its First Test Flight

October 29, 2025

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has executed the first test flight of the X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft in partnership with NASA. The first flight was subsonic, but eventually the plane will demonstrate technologies aimed at reducing sonic booms to gentle thumps.

SpaceX Veteran Lays Out Impulse Space's Roadmap for Making Deliveries to the Moon

October 14, 2025

Impulse Space, the California-based venture founded by veteran SpaceX engineer Tom Mueller, has unveiled its proposed architecture for delivering medium-sized payloads to the moon, starting as early as 2028.

SpaceX Successfully Puts Starship Through 11th Flight Test to Get Ready for the Next Generation

October 14, 2025

SpaceX closed out a dramatic chapter in the development of its super-heavy-lift Starship launch system with a successful flight test that mostly followed the script for the previous flight test.

Native Americans Had Their Own Tales to Tell About Space Aliens — and Here's a New One

October 13, 2025

In a newly published novel titled “Hole in the Sky,” Cherokee science-fiction author Daniel H. Wilson blends Native American tales about alien civilizations with up-to-date speculation about UFOs, now also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs.

A Blaze of Glory: SpaceX's Starship Goes the Distance in 10th Flight Test

August 27, 2025

After a string of setbacks, SpaceX executed the most successful flight test of its Starship launch system to date, featuring a first-of-its-kind payload deployment and a thrilling Indian Ocean splashdown.

Schweickart Prize Goes to a Plan for Managing Asteroid Mining Risks

June 26, 2025

This year's $10,000 Schweickart Prize is going to a team of students who are proposing a panel to address the risks that could arise when we start tinkering with asteroids.

After Awesome Launch, SpaceX's Starship Spins Out of Control

May 27, 2025

SpaceX's Starship super-rocket got off to a great start for its ninth flight test, but the second stage ran into a host of issues and made an uncontrolled re-entry.

Dazzling Pictures Celebrate Hubble Space Telescope's 35 Years in Orbit

April 23, 2025

This week brings the Hubble Space Telescope's 35th birthday — but instead of getting presents, the Hubble team is giving out presents in the form of four views of the cosmos, ranging from a glimpse of Mars to a glittering picture of a far-out galaxy.

NASA's Lucy Probe Snaps Its Closeup of a Weirdly Shaped Asteroid

April 21, 2025

NASA's Lucy spacecraft made a successful flyby of the second asteroid on its must-see list over the weekend, and sent back imagery documenting the elongated object's bizarre double-lobed shape. It turns out that asteroid Donaldjohanson — which was named after the anthropologist who discovered the fossils of a human ancestor called Lucy — is what's known as a contact binary, with a couple of ridges in its narrow neck.

Is There Life on an Alien Planet? Fresh Findings Revive the Debate

April 17, 2025

Two new studies have sparked fresh debate about a faraway planet with a weird atmosphere. One of the studies claims additional evidence for the presence of life on the planet K2-18 b, based on chemical clues. The other study argues that such clues can be produced on a lifeless world.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 Won't Hit Earth, But There May Be a Lunar Light Show

April 07, 2025

Although astronomers have ruled out a smash-up between Earth and an asteroid known as 2024 YR4 in the year 2032, the building-sized space rock still has a chance of hitting the moon. In fact, the chances — slight as they are — have doubled in the past month.

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