Virgin Galactic on Saturday made its first rocket-powered flight from New Mexico to the fringe of space in a manned shuttle, as the company forges toward offering tourist flights to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Liam Durnan has been on a yearlong caper, hiking all 350 miles of Cook County forest preserve trails. “When people picture the forest preserve nearest them, most people think of it being the picnic groves,” he said. “They don’t know how big this thing is. It’s just incredible.”

In yet another sign that Chicago is bouncing back to life, the city’s premiere fountain will be switched on for summer after being sidelined in 2020.

While expectant parents Monty and Rose do the heavy lifting of incubating their clutch of eggs, the rest of us can help prep for the little ones by submitting suggestions for names.

Some parts of the country still face gas shortages related to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, and the incident has drawn attention to the growing threat cyberattacks pose in the U.S. and around the world. We discuss the increasing threat and what to do about it.

Millions of specimens collected by the Field, not for exhibits but for scientific study, are unlocking mysteries of evolution and could answer questions about climate change.

Normally, nearly 11 inches of rain falls on Chicago in the spring. This year, the city has only measured 2.32 inches and is on track to set a record for the driest spring ever.

Researchers said their marine laboratory experiments with a small species of shark confirm long-held speculation that sharks use magnetic fields as aids to navigation — behavior observed in other marine animals such as sea turtles.

Southside Recycling has long planned a move to the Southwest Side. But last week, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency asked Mayor Lori Lightfoot to conduct an environmental justice assessment in the community before allowing the company to operate.

John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, met privately with Pope Francis on Saturday, afterward calling the pope a “compelling moral authority on the subject of the climate crisis” who has been “ahead of the curve.”

The beloved pair of piping plovers have established a nest, smack in the middle of habitat only just protected for the birds this spring. 

For pregnant women, fetal monitoring devices are a cumbersome array of wires and tape that require constant adjustment and, quite literally, tether the patient to a hospital bed. A team of researchers at Northwestern University is working to change that.

Look to the night sky this week for fascinating celestial show: the solar system’s three inner planets — Mercury, Venus and Mars — will all be visible. Use the crescent moon as a guide to find them in the sky.

NASA’S Ingenuity helicopter takes flight on Mars. We get an update on the space agency’s most ambitious mission to date on the Red Planet from local astronomer and space enthusiast Mark Hammergren. 

It’s illegal to forage in Cook County forest preserves. Every year, 100 citations are issued for poaching, a significant number of which involve ramps, the wild leek that gave Chicago its name.

Chicagoans notched a whopping 12,000 observations of plants, animals and fungi in the 2021 City Nature Challenge, coming in well ahead of Moscow, Prague, London and Tokyo.