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Space Week: A seven-day tour of the cosmos

18 July 2023

To celebrate the launch of our new podcast, Dead Planets Society, New Scientist editors have selected some of our most delightful premium articles about the solar system and beyond

Watch Mars ‘livestream’ by the European Space Agency – latest updates

2 June 2023

The European Space Agency is about to attempt the first ever livestream from another planet - although the distance from Earth to Mars means there will be a short delay in broadcasting

Fake alien message sent to Earth to prepare us for first contact

25 May 2023

A coded message has been sent from a spacecraft orbiting Mars to simulate potential communication from an advanced alien civilisation

It may have been snowing on Mars 400,000 years ago

28 April 2023

China’s Zhurong rover has found evidence for liquid water on the surface of Mars - and it probably began as snow or frost that melted into sand dunes

2GYKRJN The waxing crescent Moon near the stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini, with Mars below, as the last of the winter stars set into the western twilight on

How to spot Mars travelling through Gemini this week

26 April 2023

No matter where you live, Mars is currently taking a little stroll through Gemini, so it is a great time to get to know this constellation with its twin stars, Castor and Pollux, and take a look at the Red Planet too, says Abby Beall

Amazing images of Mars’s moon Deimos snapped by Emirates Mars Mission

24 April 2023

The Hope orbiter got closer to Mars’s moons Deimos and Phobos than any probe before, collecting unprecedented images and data that hints at the moons’ true origins

Inside the Space Analog for the Moon and Mars

Martian base on Earth set to host first ‘astronauts’

22 April 2023

Four people will soon move into the Space Analog for the Moon and Mars (SAM) base in Arizona

M93A81 Golden colored Asian Rice plants (Oryza sativa) growing in their natural condition with drooping rice grains and a mountain background in rural Japan

Gene-edited rice may be able to grow on Mars

15 March 2023

Martian soil is generally poor for growing plants, but researchers have used CRISPR to create gene-edited rice that might be able to germinate and grow despite the hostile habitat

A region of the Atacama desert called Red Stone

Mars rover sensors may not be sensitive enough to find signs of life

21 February 2023

While testing Mars rover sensors in the Atacama desert, researchers inadvertently found a variety of unclassifiable microorganisms called “the dark biome”