NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory laid off hundreds of employees Wednesday in anticipation of massive funding cuts in the federal budget. Despite pleas to NASA and the White House from California ...

After months of turmoil over the future of a vaunted mission to bring samples of the Red Planet back to Earth, NASA has its verdict on Mars Sample Return. The space agency is “committed” to bringing ...

Update: A minibus spending package passed by the House of Representatives on January 8, 2026, effectively cancels the Mars Sample Return program by eliminating almost all funding for future missions.

Project 2025, the sweeping right-wing blueprint for a new kind of U.S. presidency, would sabotage science-based policies that address climate change, the environment, abortion, health care access, ...

A “selfie” taken by the Perseverance Mars rover as it examines Cheyava Falls, an arrowhead-shaped rock in the center that contains potential biosignatures of past Martian life. Credit: ...

During his final months as the chief of NASA’s science programs last year, there was one mission Thomas Zurbuchen fretted about more than any other—the agency’s ambitious plan to return rocks from ...