NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.

After numerous winter storms this month left much of the Chicago area blanketed in an entire season’s worth of snowfall and ushered in dangerously cold wind chills, warmer temperatures are expected in the coming days. But first: more snow.

First came the big chill, then the big dig, and now officials are warning Chicagoans to prepare for the big melt. With temperatures on the rise, the snow that’s accumulated over the past three weeks is about to turn into a river. 

This week’s killer freeze in the U.S. was no surprise. Government and private meteorologists saw it coming, some nearly three weeks in advance. And yet catastrophe happened. At least 20 people have died and 4 million homes at some point lost power, heat or water.

NASA’s Perseverance rover greeted its global audience on Twitter, beaming back to Earth the first image captured after touching down Thursday afternoon on Mars. 

A collective groan may or may not have been heard around Chicago when the city awoke to find it was snowing — again. Geoffrey Baer explains how this recent blast of snowy weather stacks up against Chicago’s most infamous winter storms.

Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. So the world must make dramatic changes to society, economics and daily life, a new United Nations report says.

NASA prepares to land a rover on Mars designed specifically to detect signs of ancient life. Local astronomer and space exploration enthusiast Mark Hammergren tells us more about the mission.

Students from across Chicago voted on the name for the Shedd’s 5-month old Pacific white-sided dolphin calf.

If winter 2021 feels epic, that’s because it has been. According to the National Weather Service, it’s been 40 years since Chicago has seen so much snow in such a short span of time.

As Chicago digs out from yet another major snowfall, with accumulation piling on top of previous storm totals, the Department of Streets and Sanitation is activating its plan to relocate snow to pre-determined sites. Plows could shift to residential streets Tuesday evening, officials said. 

Snow dampens other sounds, but it makes plenty of noise itself, especially in colder temperatures. Here’s why. 

O’Hare Airport officially notched 7.5 inches of snow but some Chicago neighborhoods got socked with more than twice that amount in the past 24 hours. 

It’s been 10 years since the infamous Groundhog Day blizzard left hundreds of motorists stranded on Lake Shore Drive. As another major winter storm bears down on Chicago, officials are putting to use lessons learned from that debacle.

While lake effect snow will come and go through Tuesday, the storm system, approaching from the south, is expected to reach Chicago by mid-afternoon Monday, according to the National Weather Service. 

Chicago set a new record for the coldest Feb. 14 in history, with a high temperature of just 4 degrees recorded at O’Hare Airport on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.