NASA’s 10-day Artemis II mission showed off the rigor and precision that has made the agency a household name.

It was a triumphant homecoming for the crew of four whose record-breaking lunar flyby revealed not only swaths of the moon’s far side — never seen before by human eyes — but a total solar eclipse.

NASA released the crew’s first downlinked images Friday, 1 1/2 days into the first astronaut moonshot in more than half a century.

If the weather holds, NASA will send four astronauts into space today on a 10-day mission to the moon and back, something the agency hasn't done in more than 50 years.

The bright daylight fireball was visible across a large swath of the U.S., from Illinois to Maryland to New York, at approximately 7:55 a.m. Central time.

Early risers will enjoy views of a total lunar eclipse in the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday.

Chicagoans — and folks across the country — were treated to a dazzling display of the aurora borealis (northern lights) Tuesday night and there could be an encore in the works Wednesday.

Let’s hand it to the moon, it makes skywatching easy.

A pair of newly identified comets are jointly appearing in the October sky, and it’s possible to see both — if you know where to look and when.

A bright moon will make it harder than usual to see the meteors as they streak across the night sky. But experts say it’s still worth a try.

Friday is the longest day of the year north of the equator, where the solstice marks the start of astronomical summer. It’s the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the shortest day of the year and winter will start.

A space rock the color of coal and no larger than a pebble you’d shake from a shoe just arrived at the Field Museum, where scientists will spend the next two months probing this extraordinary specimen for clues to the origin of life on Earth.

Bits and pieces of Halley’s Comet, which last swung by Earth in 1986, will be visible as meteors in upcoming days. The Aquarid meteor shower will peak in the pre-dawn hours of May 5 and 6.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers said they were able to detect signs of sulfur-based molecules called dimethyl sulfide or DMS, which on Earth are only produced by life, primarily marine phytoplankton.

The first meteor shower of the year is here, with the Lyrids peaking late tonight into the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday.

This week’s lunar eclipse will be the first witnessed in high-def from the moon itself — technically a solar eclipse on the moon — thanks to a lunar lander. “I cannot wait for this to happen,” said astronomer Michelle Nichols of Adler Planetarium.