Rocket launches and satellite reentries are depositing metals and soot directly into Earth’s stratosphere, and a growing body of peer-reviewed research warns that these pollutants are altering the chemical makeup of a layer that shields life from ultraviolet radiation.

When the surface of the Sun exploded with activity in May 2024, Earth was hit by the biggest solar storm in more than two decades. The video shown below—made from images captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory—shows the powerful solar flare and coronal mass ejection that sent an onslaught of charged particles hurtling toward us.

Look up on a clear night and you'll see the streaks of our new space age. What you don't see is the growing fallout for the atmosphere that keeps us alive.

A huge solar storm struck Mars in 2024, supercharging its upper atmosphere and briefly disrupting spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet.

Astronomers have searched for years for rocky planets beyond our solar system with an atmosphere — a trait considered essential for any possibility of harboring life. Well, they finally seem to have located one. But this hellish planet — apparently ...