This week marks 60 years since Mariner 2 flew by Venus, making the probe the first successful interplanetary mission. The flyby spacecraft flew within 21,500 miles of the Morning and Evening Star, ...

You have to feel for Mariner 9. First, the spacecraft loses its twin, Mariner 8, in a launch failure just weeks before Mariner 9 itself was scheduled to blast off toward Mars on May 30, 1971. Not only ...

Even Mariner 9 was a bit of a crap shoot. Originally, it was supposed to be a two-spacecraft mission along with Mariner 8, but that one was destroyed in a launch failure and NASA had to scramble at ...

Once imagined as humid and hot forested wetlands, shrouded in clouds, Venus was the setting for countless sci-fi pulp imaginings. Edgar Rice Burroughs, a prolific pulp sci-fi writer, wrote of a hot ...

PASADENA, Calif. — Fifty years ago on a mid-December day, NASA’s Mariner 2 spacecraft sailed close to the shrouded planet Venus, marking the first time any spacecraft had ever successfully made a ...

In 1965, significant advancements were made in space science, particularly through the Ranger and Mariner missions, which explored the Moon and Mars, respectively. Key achievements included the ...

Red Planet Day reminds us how a single spacecraft, Mariner 4, transformed humanity's understanding of Mars and opened a new ...

There was cake, coffee and nostalgia about achievements in space at the University of Colorado Boulder on Tuesday, but that was complemented by no shortage of looking forward to the future there. The ...

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t all that long ago that the entire body of knowledge of our solar system was built solely with Earth-based observations. Turning first their naked eyes to the ...

Editor’s note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Just steps away from High Bay 1, where ...