Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Look Up Say More Mashable Selects Mashable Voices Safety Net Creator Hub Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Switch Off Trending Now In My Bag All Series NASA's Roman telescope is built to find what Hubble and Webb miss Elisha Sauers writes about space for Mashable, taking deep dives into NASA's moon and Mars missions, chatting up astronauts and history-making discoverers, and jetting above the clouds . Through 17 years of reporting, she's covered a variety of topics, including health, business, and government, with a penchant for public records requests. She previously worked for in Norfolk, Virginia, and in Annapolis, Maryland. Her work has earned numerous state awards, including the Virginia Press Association's top honor, Best in Show, and national recognition for narrative storytelling. For each year she has covered space, Sauers has won National Headliner Awards, including first place for her Sex in Space series.

The 22-year-old orbital observatory is expected to plunge back to Earth sometime in October. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . NASA engineers have confirmed they can't spare the historic Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from a fiery demise, despite their best efforts.

NASA's new dark energy space telescope can also detect killer asteroids At the end of August, NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its quest is to help us better understand how the universe works, from the glue-like dark matter that keeps galaxies together to the elusive dark energy that drives the expansion of the cosmos. But Roman could also serve another purpose: defending Earth from killer asteroids. In September, a multi-institutional team of planetary scientists and astronomers will outline how it's uniquely placed to scan asteroids, and provide information about their trajectories, sizes and compositions. Read our story about how this new space telescope might boost planetary defense. There are plenty of useful things a metric can reveal.

Plus: France has become the first EU country to ban social media for under-15s. Shape-shifting mirrors on NASA's new space telescope could unveil Jupiters like our own When NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches, as early as the end of next month, it will attempt one of astronomy's most precise disappearing acts to date. It will carry the first space-bound "active" coronagraph, an instrument that effectively erases most of the light from a star during photography. The technology will allow astronomers to take the first pictures of planets orbiting other stars that are similar to those in our solar system. Ultimately, it could pave the way for a future mission that could snap the first photos of Earth-like worlds. "I hope it's remembered for it being that critical stepping stone for finding Earth 2.0," says Brandon Creager, the instrument's lead mechanical engineer.

More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Neural networks trained to spot biosignatures may flag far more results than they should. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . Don't expect a dramatic, AI-assisted sci-fi encounter if humanity ever definitively detects evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life .

The release also includes new sonifications of red, white, and blue nebulae and galaxies. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. In celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has unveiled four cosmic images rendered in red, white, and blue that represent the wonders of the universe that NASA explores. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW?

The sun's violent death could look like this A white dwarf and an unusual exoplanet hint that'stellar death is not the end.' More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . The sun still has a long life ahead of it, say five billion years or so.

More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Nintendo released the Game Boy Camera in 1998 and discontinued it only four years later. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . Both amateur and professional astronomers have captured incredible photos of Jupiter from Earth over the years, while space probes like NASA's Juno have actually glimpsed the gas giant up close.

More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Discovered in 2013, the Pink Planet orbits a sun-like star located 57 light-years from Earth. At roughly 25 times the mass of Jupiter, it sits near the fuzzy boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs. So, astronomers refer to it as a "planetary-mass companion," meaning that it's a planet-sized object orbiting a star. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week.