The quickest way to recognize how rad Earth is, is to leave it. Every time we send a spacecraft into space, we have to send it with everything it will ever need riding on its back or in its belly.

The United States is preparing to mine a rare nuclear resource from some of its most dangerous Cold War legacies, turning ...

Voyages into space are among the most iconic endeavors of the 20th and 21st centuries. Spacecraft that have ventured out to this “final frontier” have relayed stunning images and enlightening ...

Plutonium is not a fun word to speak, hear, or write. Used to depict an actinide metal we've known about for some time, it has become synonymous with human-caused destruction on a hard-to-comprehend ...

Twenty years ago, I began to learn about plutonium-238, the isotope of plutonium used in space. I was familiar with plutonium-239, built up in nuclear power plants and used in nuclear weapons. My ...

Powering spacecraft with solar energy may not seem like a challenge, given how intense the Sun’s light can feel on Earth. Spacecraft near the Earth use large solar panels to harness the Sun for the ...

NASA is running out of the special kind of plutonium needed to power deep space probes, worrying planetary scientists who say the U. S. urgently needs to restart production of plutonium-238. But it's ...

The legacy of environmental waste is “hiding in plain sight” at a popular open space in the heart of Los Alamos that became a dumping ground during the Manhattan Project, according to testing results ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., March 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy has produced its first batch of non-weapons grade plutonium, used to power space probes, since a nuclear reactor shutdown 25 ...