Watch a video replay of NASA’s exoplanet announcement

The Cassini spacecraft captured a captivating image of wispy methane clouds suspended above Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes as the probe headed for its third shot through Saturn’s ring gap Tuesday.

A flying drone fitted with counter-rotating blades, on-board autonomy, and a lightweight carbon-fiber fuselage will ride to the Red Planet with NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, officials announced Friday.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Tuesday with five communications satellites for Iridium’s commercial voice, data relay, and tracking network, and a pair of U.S.-German research craft to probe Earth’s climate and water cycle. Launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, occurred at 12:47 p.m. PDT (3:47 p.m. EDT; 1947 GMT).