A historic NASA probe sends back a treasure-trove of information from billions of miles away.
Search Results
You searched for: Jupiter
A new computer model solves a pair of Jovian riddles.
What makes Uranus and Neptune-like worlds so fascinating? If you only knew. What do we really know, and what mysteries are left to solve, about the outer worlds of our Solar […]
The anthropic principle has some fascinating scientific uses. And abuses, too. For thousands of years, humans have pondered the meaning of our existence. From philosophers who debated whether their minds could […]
Not only can’t astronomers and planetary scientists agree, but the IAU made it worse for everyone. If you were alive in 2006, you likely remember a momentous event in astronomy: […]
As the fabled star continues to dim, the world holds its breath and hopes. Here’s what’s in store when the fateful day arrives. The stars in the night sky, normally static […]
After Kepler but before James Webb, TESS is preparing astronomers for the coming exoplanet revolution. There are always new discoveries and achievements occurring in science, and certain fields have experienced […]
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 […]
Objects coming into our solar system have an origins story to tell.
Sure, we’re warming now. But will this continue, or will natural factors change things? According to our best understanding of Earth’s climate, the global average temperature has increased significantly over the […]
Since the late 1800s, what we know has advanced light years ahead.
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 […]
If there are cracks in Einstein’s theory, this is how to find them. Is Einstein’s most powerful theory, General Relativity, always correct? Or will there come a point where it breaks […]
Our outer Solar System, from Jupiter to Neptune, isn’t unique after all. In the early 1990s, scientists began detecting the first planets orbiting stars other than the Sun: exoplanets. The easiest […]
It’s been spectacularly confirmed by observation, but theoretically, it couldn’t have been any other way. If the Sun were to spontaneously cease emitting light, we wouldn’t know about it for about […]
Don’t miss the summer’s greatest natural sights of all. Some of the natural highlights of our night sky are easy to overlook. Every year, you’ll hear about some of the brightest, […]
Mathematics is the most useful tool we have for understanding the Universe. But it doesn’t answer to anything on its own. At the frontiers of theoretical physics, many of the most […]
And one of our planets has the orbiting moons to prove it. Despite the dangers posed to planet Earth by a comet or asteroid strike, our Solar System is actually an […]
A case for looking beyond the planetary scientist’s (or even the astronomer’s) definition. Ever since 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially defined the term planet — introducing the term ‘dwarf […]
She may not be ours forever.
The process of digging into hard questions makes the moment of discovery all the more satisfying.
Recent advances indicate that the idea could work.
Until about a decade ago, only two habitable zone planets of any size were known to astronomers: Earth and Mars.
What if all planets were the same distance from Earth as the Moon?
There are three factors all competing to determine the fate of the Earth, and the one that’s winning now won’t win in the end. If you could measure the average distance […]
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 […]
Only 8 worlds make the astronomical cut as planets. Here are the 10 fascinating bodies that didn’t make it. Astronomically, bodies within the Solar System must achieve three criteria in order […]
The dream of an ‘Earth-like’ planet showcases our astrobiological ignorance. Over the past decade, our understanding of what planets exist around stars other than our own has exploded. The number […]
General Relativity has nothing to do with light or electromagnetism at all. So how to gravitational waves know to travel at the speed of light? There are two fundamental classes of […]