The Grand Finale

Members of the public have an opportunity to vote for their favorite name for NASA's next Mars rover. More than 28,000 essays were submitted after the contest began on Aug. 28 last year.

Engineers did not have exoplanet science in mind when they designed the Spitzer Space Telescope in the 1990s, but thanks solid engineering, Spitzer’s observational powers were used far beyond original expectations.

An emerging idea, bolstered by three decades of science, is that there are "Goldilocks stars" — not too hot, not too cool, and above all, not too violent to host life-friendly planets.

One of NASA's four Great Observatories, Spitzer launched on Aug. 25, 2003, and has studied the cosmos in infrared light. Its breathtaking images have revealed the beauty of the infrared universe.

NASA’s Lucy mission team is seeing double after discovering that Eurybates, the asteroid the spacecraft has targeted for flyby in 2027, has a small moon. This bonus science opportunity was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.

In a 10-plus-hour marathon, the rover steered, turned and drove in 3-foot (1-meter) increments over small ramps.