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Zircon is the "time-lords" of the earth. They are indestructible and take up radioactive materials, so they're used to track events in deep time that would otherwise be lost to us.

Testing pregnant people's blood to look at free-floating DNA can tell doctors about the health of the fetus. But these tests sometime turn up DNA that might be shed by cancerous cells.

The ruling is the latest twist in a long-running dispute over where dozens of federally-supported former research chimps should live out the remainder of their days.

The last time astronauts landed on the moon was 50 years ago today. The vehicle NASA is preparing for the next journey returns from a test flight this afternoon.

Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission — the last one that put humans on the moon. NPR takes a look at the mission and what it means for future travel to our lunar companion.

December 7, 1972 was the launch of the final mission in NASA's Apollo moon program. Fifty years later, NASA finally seems poised to return people to the lunar surface.

Scientists studying a gas giant planet have found that it's partly cloudy and that its atmosphere gets altered by starlight from its host star.

NASA says an extensive review of historical records found no evidence that Webb ever led or supported purges of government employees who were gay. But some astronomers think that's a pretty low bar.

Galaxies that existed soon after the Big Bang turn out to be surprisingly bright, a discovery that's both thrilled and puzzled scientists who study how the universe evolved over time.

A NASA crew capsule is on a 25-day journey to the moon and back. NASA flight controllers will put the spacecraft through its paces before its first lunar mission with astronauts on board.

NASA's Artemis moon rocket has finally launched after months of setbacks, from fuel leaks to hurricanes. If successful, the mission signals a big step toward returning humans to the moon.

Again, NASA is trying to launch its big new moon rocket on its first test flight.

The space agency has been trying for months to send its giant moon rocket on its first test flight. The goal is to send a crew capsule, with no astronauts on board, around the moon and back.

This wrinkled ol' pal, found across much of the U. S., may be in decline. A huge study in North Carolina plans to track box turtles for 100 years, to learn how to best protect them.

An ambitious long-term study of box turtles seeks to study the population across North Carolina to determine the health of the species over a hundred years.

At 7:14 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 26, a NASA spacecraft will crash into a small asteroid. The impact will test whether the space agency could deflect asteroids, in case one ever threatens Earth.

NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in a test of planetary defense. Now it will determine whether the mission was able to alter the asteroid's course.

NASA is getting ready to give an asteroid a little push, in a test intended to ready Earth's defenses against a potential asteroid approach.

NASA aims to make history Monday by ramming a spacecraft into an asteroid - to deflect its trajectory. The test is meant to defend against possible future asteroids on a collision course with earth.

For a second time, NASA has scrubbed the launch of its new moon rocket. Problems with fuel leaks and faulty sensors led to the delays for the Artemis-1 test mission, with more possible delays to come.