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Can the recent Discovery mission selections be used as tea leaves to understand the future directions of NASA? In an age of many programmes being used to advance administrative and programmatic goals, Discovery appears to be driven almost entirely by science and by NASA's goal of cheaper missions.
It's not often that an astronomical object gets its own dedicated observatory, but as the planet Beta Pictoris b moves in front of its host star, its every move will be watched by bRing, eager to discover more about the planet's Hill sphere, explains Matthew Kenworthy.
Dante Lauretta, Principal Investigator of the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission, discusses his experience with designing Xtronaut, a space-themed board game for the whole family.
Neil Gehrels passed away on 6 February 2017. A pioneer of observational high-energy astrophysics, he was an exceptional leader, scholar, colleague and friend.
Twenty-five years ago, the detection of the first extrasolar planets opened up an area of research that has fascinated both researchers and the general public alike.
The scientific aims of the European Space Agency's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory are considerably extended because of its unique capability to identify electromagnetic counterparts to sources of gravitational waves and ultra-high-energy neutrinos.