Freddie Mercury Now Races Around the Sun

Here is the latest Science News from The New York Times.

Freddie Mercury Now Races Around the Sun
An asteroid has been named for the Queen lead singer, who died in 1991.

Osiris-Rex: Chasing Asteroid Bennu
NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft will hunt down an asteroid and return a sample to Earth.

NASA Aims at an Asteroid Holding Clues to the Solar System’s Roots
The robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex, to be launched Thursday, will chase down Bennu and then, hopefully, return with a sample from its surface.

No Longer Missing: Rosetta’s Philae Spacecraft Located on Comet
Scientists have found the space lander, which disappeared in 2014 after a rough landing on the surface of a comet.

Trilobites: Juno Offers New Look at Jupiter’s North Pole
NASA released new pictures taken by the spacecraft’s camera as it finished its first of 36 orbits around our solar system’s biggest planet.

SpaceX Rocket Explodes at Launchpad in Cape Canaveral
The fiery blast also destroyed a satellite that Facebook had planned to use to expand internet services in Africa.

Trilobites: A ‘Ring of Fire’ Eclipse Starts Thursday
Thursday’s event will be visible from Gabon, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar.

Trilobites: A NASA Satellite Ends the Silent Treatment
The signal from STEREO-B, one of twin crafts put in orbit to study the sun, was lost for almost two years before it was heard from last week.

Op-Ed Contributor: What’s So Special About Another Earth?
We’re excited about the latest exoplanet because of what it says about our own celestial home.

China Launches Quantum Satellite in Bid to Pioneer Secure Communications
Researchers hope to beam transmissions from space to earth with quantum technology, a type of communication that could prove to be the most secure in the world.

Colorado Towns Work to Preserve a Diminishing Resource: Darkness
As light pollution from large metropolitan areas seeps across the country, Westcliffe, Colo., has made being a dark place central to its allure.

Trilobites: Grandiose Canyons on a Saturn Moon, Filled With Liquid Methane
The Cassini spacecraft used radar reflections to detect the deep, narrow chasms on Titan, a frigid moon that shares certain similarities with Earth.

Trilobites: Get Ready for the Perseids Meteor Shower: ‘It Will Rival the Stars in the Sky.’
As many as 200 meteors per hour will ignite in the Earth’s atmosphere during the peak on Thursday night and Friday morning. Here’s how to catch the show.

What in the World: A Space-Age Food Product Invented by the Incas
Astronauts need lightweight, long-lasting provisions for hazardous trips. So did the Incas, and villagers in the Andes have made their version for centuries.

Third Man Records Sends a Vinyl Record Into Space
The spinning gold-plated copy of Carl Sagan’s “A Glorious Dawn” reached 94,000 feet above earth on a high-altitude balloon.

Florida Company Gets Approval to Put Robotic Lander on Moon
If accomplished, that feat would win the company, Moon Express, the Google Lunar X Prize competition and an accompanying $20 million reward.

Trilobites: Study Asks if Moon Astronauts Got Increased Heart Risks
With deep space exploration on the horizon, researchers say more research on radiation exposure and cardiovascular disease is needed.

Seattle, With Its Needle, Is Turning Into a Space Center
Commercial aerospace start-ups are attracting access to investors with deep pockets and an abundance of software talent.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Also Very Hot
Astronomers say the giant swirling storm on the solar system’s largest planet is generating quite a bit of heat for its upper atmosphere.

Trilobites: South African Telescope Spots 1,300 Unknown Galaxies
The distant galaxies were recorded by a set of 16 antennas that will eventually be a part of the largest telescope ever built on Earth.

Trilobites: How Mountains Obscured by Venus’s Clouds Reveal Themselves
Data from Europe’s Venus Express spacecraft has helped researchers better understand the hurricane-like winds that blast the second planet from the sun.

Juno Sends First Image Back While Orbiting Jupiter
NASA released the first photograph taken from its space probe since its camera was turned back on after it locked into orbit on July 4.

Astronomers Discover New Likely Dwarf Planet, the Latest of Many
The object was seen in the Kuiper belt, a ring of icy debris beyond Neptune. Dozens of similar bodies may also meet the definition of a dwarf planet.

Now Orbiting Jupiter, NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Is Poised for ‘Tantalizing’ Data
A brief lull after Juno’s arrival at Jupiter gave scientists time to catch their breath before the spacecraft begins to peer deep inside the planet.

What to Expect When NASA’s Spacecraft Juno Gets to Jupiter
Juno will orbit the gas giant 37 times in 20 months, with the hopes that it will collect data and images that offer clues to the origins of our solar system.

NASA Announces Extension of 9 Spacecraft Missions
As the spacecraft Juno approaches Jupiter, NASA has decided to extend the lives of several older explorers, including one orbiting Ceres, the dwarf planet.

A Space Pioneer, 79, Is Ready to Track Juno for NASA
Susan G. Finley, whose career with NASA spans more than five decades, will monitor signals from the explorer Juno on the Fourth of July, when it is expected to reach Jupiter.

Juno Enters Jupiter’s Orbit, Capping 5-Year Voyage
A signal from the spacecraft Monday night confirmed that it arrived at the planet, on a mission NASA hopes will yield clues to the origins of our solar system.

Simon Ramo Dies at 103; Helped Develop ICBMs in the Cold War
Dr. Ramo advised presidents on science and technology, and was a postwar force in the aerospace and electronics industries.

All Eyes (and Ears) on Jupiter
NASA released a recording of the Juno spacecraft crossing into Jupiter’s magnetosphere. And telescopes are zooming in to add context to Juno’s data.

NASA’s Juno Mission Is to Be Captured by Jupiter
The spacecraft is to orbit the largest planet in the solar system, perhaps gaining insight into the origin of Earth.

Trilobites: Cassini’s Final Mission: Obliteration
The spacecraft is preparing to plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere to ensure that nothing from Earth is left on the planets moons, which could host life.

NASA Unveils Plans for Electric-Powered Plane
The agency announced plans for an all-electric airplane as part of efforts to make aviation more efficient and less of a polluter.

Trilobites: New ‘Extinct’ Meteorite Hints at Violent Cosmic Collision
The discovery in a Swedish limestone quarry is unlike any meteorite ever before found on Earth.

Short Answers to Your Good Questions About Black Holes
The Times’s cosmic affairs correspondent doesn’t know what happens at a black hole’s center, but he did answer other questions submitted by hundreds of readers.

Scientists Hear a Second Chirp From Colliding Black Holes
The noise, which lasted about a second, emanated from the collision of black holes roughly 14 and 8 times as massive as the sun.

Trilobites: The Ancient Greek Philosopher’s Guide to the Galaxy
After more than a decade of work, scientists have deciphered about 3,500 words of explanatory text written on the Antikythera Mechanism, found in a shipwreck.

Patti Grace Smith, Champion of Private Space Travel, Dies at 68
As a federal aviation official, Ms. Smith set policies that allowed private space companies to flourish and planned to travel to space herself one day.

Trilobites: Light Pollution Masks the Milky Way for a Third of the World’s Population
A new interactive atlas shows the global effects of artificial light on views of the stars from Earth.

Gray Matter: Yes, There Have Been Aliens
They may not exist now. But new discoveries imply that they once did.

No Escape From Black Holes? Stephen Hawking Points to a Possible Exit
New calculations by Dr. Hawking and other researchers suggest that essential properties of whatever falls into these cosmic pits may survive.

Watch Saturn Shine on Friday, No Equipment Required
Our solar system’s sixth planet will be at opposition, providing one of the best opportunities to see it with the naked eye.

Trilobites: Following New Horizons’ Long Mission, Pluto Gets a Forever Stamp
NASA and the United States Postal Service released two new Forever 47-cent stamps commemorating the voyage to Pluto.

Trilobites: A Close Encounter for Earth and Mars
The two planets will be at their closest in more than a decade, separated by just 47 million miles.

On Its Second Try, NASA Adds Space to Station
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station pumped air into an inflatable compartment that could be a forerunner to habitats on Mars and the moon.

NASA to Try Again to Inflate a Balloon-like Pod for the Space Station
After a failed attempt, NASA will again pump air into the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or Beam, which will be a new room for astronauts.

A Spat Over the Search for Killer Asteroids
A former Microsoft technologist questions NASA’s efforts to identify space rocks and their proximity to Earth.

The Complete Mercury Transition
A time-lapse video of Mercury’s transition across the sun Monday, which lasted about seven hours.

How NASA Watched the Mercury Transit
Physicists at NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a time-lapse video using two instruments to filter the image of the sun and its rays as Mercury passed by it on Monday.

Kepler Finds 1,284 New Exoplanets
Astronomers say the planets orbit stars in a patch of sky on the Cygnus-Lyra border where the NASA spacecraft has been cataloging them.

Hillary Clinton, the First ‘E.T. Candidate,’ Has U.F.O. Fans in Thrall
Space enthusiasts are captivated by Mrs. Clinton’s interest in discussing extraterrestrials and her pledge to declassify government files on Area 51.

Trilobites: Watch Mercury Sail Across the Sun
For about seven hours starting Monday morning, the planet will appear as a black speck awash in the sun’s light in an event called the Mercury transit.

LIGO Gravitational Wave Researchers to Divide $3 Million
Yuri Milner, a Russian Internet entrepreneur, announced that the three leaders would split $1 million. The balance will go to 1,012 other scientists.

Trilobites: If You Blink, You Might Miss the Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower
The Eta Aquarids is one of the fastest meteor showers. Its specks pierce the sky at about 148,000 miles per hour.

With Putin Looking On, Russian Rocket Launches Late
Russia’s space agency postponed the inaugural launch of a rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East, citing technical problems.

SpaceX Says It Plans to Send a Probe to Mars
Elon Musk’s company said it would dispatch its Dragon vessel to the planet, possibly as early as 2018, with a long-term goal of establishing colonies.

Trilobites: Makemake, the Moonless Dwarf Planet, Has a Moon, After All
Astronomers found the moon, nicknamed MK2, in an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Trilobites: Periods in Space Are Not That Different, Though a Bit More Complicated
For future astronauts, who would rather not menstruate in space, researchers have written up some recommendations.

Trilobites: A Hubble Birthday Bubble in Clear View
NASA released a stunning image of the Bubble Nebula in advance of the space telescope’s 26th anniversary.

Mission to Alpha Centauri
The cosmologist Stephen Hawking and the entrepreneur Yuri Milner released a simulation that shows how a project called Breakthrough Starshot aims to send small robots to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.