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Space Exploration
Ever wonder, exactly, how stars form from molecular gas and dust? So do scientists. One of the great challenges for astronomy is to determine, in gory detail, how stars are […]
It’s one of only five spacecraft that will exit the Solar System, and the only one we have a chance to aim at another star. Of all the spacecraft ever launched, […]
A fascinating new book tells the untold stories of two women, Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb, who could have been first. On June 18, 1983, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched with […]
And how cutting just $1 billion per year in funding from NASA’s budget would be a catastrophe for science. When you think of the great cosmic beyond and what we know […]
We’ve come fantastically far in our understanding of the distant Universe. Here’s how we’ll go even farther. Sometime in 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will launch, deploy, and begin science […]
Two of our biggest science-fiction dreams might not remain fiction for much longer. Here’s how 21st-century science could make it real. For as long as human beings have looked up at […]
A fascinating podcast on the topic with NASA scientist Dr. Jessie Christiansen. How many planets are out there in the Universe? How many stars have planets, and what kinds of […]
The NSF’s new, cutting-edge solar observatory shows us the Sun as never before. Here’s why we need to know. On December 12, 2019, the world’s most powerful solar observatory — the National Science […]
The closest star to our own doesn’t just host one rocky planet, but a second, larger ‘super-Earth’ much farther out. Of all the stars in the Universe, the closest one to […]
Unlike most articles that are titled with a question, the answer isn’t automatically “no.” Announced on January 6, 2020, NASA’s TESS mission has just discovered its first Earth-sized, habitable zone […]
It’s one thing to find a galaxy that “shouldn’t exist.” It’s quite another to learn why it does. Above a certain size, spiral galaxies shouldn’t exist. A single major merger — where two […]
After 13.8 billion years, there’s still a whole lot that’s changing as time goes on. With each new year that comes upon us, there are a slew of new events awaiting […]
The Eagle Nebula, complete with the Pillars of Creation, tells a mini-version of the story of how all the Universe’s stars formed. The Eagle Nebula, found 7,000 light-years away, demonstrates how […]
It’s a supergiant star in the final stage of its life, and it just dimmed by an enormous amount. What’s going on? When you take a look at the stars in […]
We all have obstacles to overcome in pursuit of our goals. For Santa Claus, it’s clear that science is the key. Of all the challenges we face in our work, perhaps […]
The NICER experiment, designed to measure neutron stars as never before, just released their first pulsar map, and it’s amazing. After typical supernovae, remnant collapsed cores of matter are left behind. […]
There’s real, straightforward science behind the destruction of an Alderaan-sized planet. In all of science fiction, perhaps the most iconic moment of destruction occurs in 1977’s Star Wars: A New […]
It’s one of the two best meteor showers of the year. Don’t let the full Moon stop you. Every year, as the Earth intercepts the debris streams of comets and asteroids […]
The most famous ‘supernova impostor’ of all could have died back in the 1840s. Here’s what we think kept it alive. In all of astronomy, no stellar event releases more energy […]
In science, breakthroughs don’t always begin with a ‘eureka’ moment. Sometimes, the true story is absolutely unbelievable. When it comes to our Universe’s origin story, many competing ideas once thrived. […]
Even before MMA was a combat sport, it was a unique type of astronomy. Today, it’s opening up the Universe as never before. On February 24, 1987, a spectacular signal was […]
On May 9, 2016, the prior transit of Mercury occurred, and was photographed many times on a practically continuous basis by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Transits of Mercury are rare, […]
A theoretical view of a distant world so far from our Sun that our Solar System appears barely brighter than the remaining stars in the sky. ( Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)) Pluto […]
Young galaxies are bright and blue; old galaxies are red and dead. So how did this old, red galaxy form so early? The observable Universe contains two trillion distinct galaxies, but […]
Forget about alien nonsense. The Universe as it actually is doesn’t need any embellishments to be interesting. In our Solar System, the planets, moons, asteroids, comets and other masses are […]
Traveling interstellar distances in human lifetimes is an amazing dream, but it won’t ever be achieved like this. For centuries, ever since we realized that every star we can see in […]
If you think that the Moon is only good for reflecting sunlight, you’ve got another think coming. To human eyes, the Moon is the second brightest visible object, trailing only the […]
We know a lot about what else is out there, but we still don’t know everything. In the quest for life in the Universe, it makes sense to look at […]
There’s so much we don’t know about fast radio bursts and galactic halos. Combined, we get a unique window on the Universe. Deep in space, mysterious signals known as Fast […]
It would be the ultimate method for solving our pollution or hazardous/radioactive waste problems, but we’ll never do it. Here’s why. Imagine our planet as it was for the first 4.55 […]