NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were able to remove a stuck radio communications unit on a record-setting spacewalk on Thursday (Jan. 30).

A NASA spacecraft has returned asteroid samples that hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world.

There are 20 amino acids that create the proteins required for life on our planet — and scientists have now found exactly 14 of them on an asteroid millions of miles away. The asteroid in question, named Bennu, was the focus of a very dreamy NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx that launched in 2016.

Last year, 2024, was the warmest year on record for the planet, easily breaking the previous record set just a year earlier.

Rock and dust samples from the Bennu asteroid contain molecules that are the "key to life" on Earth, NASA officials announced on Wednesday.

All forms of Earth life have specific chemicals in their makeup, such as amino acids and sugars. Scientists have known that asteroids hold molecules believed to be the precursors to these chemicals. By studying the Bennu samples, they hope to gain more insight into how these ingredients could have evolved.

Scientists from NASA and other institutions who have been analyzing the Bennu asteroid sample that returned to Earth last September found molecules, including amino acids, which are essential ingredients of life as we know it.

Molecules friendly to life have been found in samples of the asteroid Bennu, which NASA collected with a robotic probe five years ago.

NASA is preparing the Orion spacecraft for its first crewed flight around the moon. Here's how astronauts will fly it.

"NASA and SpaceX are expeditiously working to safely return the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore as soon as practical, while also preparing for the launch of Crew-10 to complete a handover between expeditions," Cheryl Warner, NASA's news chief at the agency's headquarters, said in a statement to reporters.

After the first test flights in 2025, Lockheed Martin will transfer the plane to NASA. Then, after acoustic testing over California's Edwards Air Force Base and Armstrong Flight Research Center, NASA will fly the X-plane over select U.S. cities in 2026 and 2027.