Mining asteroids might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but there are companies and a few governments already working hard to make it real.
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Most people think human extinction would be bad. These people aren’t philosophers.
Finding the ingredients for life is a very different prospect than finding the products of life. Perhaps the greatest quest in science today is to find life that originated beyond Earth. […]
If the bolide had hit just 30 seconds later, we’d be looking at a very different Earth.
The next gold rush won’t be in the hills of California. It’ll be in space. There’s gold in them thar skies!
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The reason why is simple, and should apply to every solar system like our own. On January 3rd, 2019, Earth reached the point in its orbit where it’s at its closest […]
The Swift-Tuttle comet is the source of the lovely Perseid meteor shower each August. It’s also getting closer and closer, making it “the single most dangerous object known to humanity.”
The Solar System’s outermost, undisputed planet wasn’t discovered until the 19th century. Here’s how you can easily find it yourself this December. There’s no greater scientific thrill than discovering something […]
A little peek into our past reveals tantalizing details.
Diamonds can be formed in one of four fascinating ways.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is encouraging aerospace companies to up their game after successfully launching the most powerful rocket since NASA’s Saturn V.
The ‘giant impact’ that led to Earth might not have been so giant, after all. A little over 4.5 billion years ago, our Solar System began to form. Somewhere in the […]
If the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, promoted by Stephen Hawking, works exactly as planned, it could lead to disaster. Imagine yourself on a world not so different from Earth, orbiting a […]
This meteorite is the oldest known volcanic rock in the solar system, dated at 4,565,000,000 years old.
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While the Patriots battle the Eagles during Super Bowl LII, asteroid AJ129 is flying pretty close to Earth, cosmically speaking. But how close exactly will it be, and should you be concerned?
At ground zero, Trinitite, the green, glassy substance found in the area, is still radioactive and must not be picked up. The Trinity Site was where the first atomic bomb […]
A perspective from Brother Guy Consolmagno, astronomer and theologian.
The line between science and pseudoscience is imperceptible to most. Here’s how you can catch it in yourself. When it comes to science, the first principle is that you must […]
It may have been captured by Neptune since it formed, but Triton remains king of the Kuiper belt. Our Solar System is arguably the most well-studied corner of the Universe, with […]
From millions of miles to millions of light years, there’s nothing else that leaves trails like this. When you point your telescope at the distant Universe, observing a faint, massive object […]
Meteorites could be sowing life throughout the galaxy.
There’s nothing new, recent, or remarkable about it. It’s just a typical cosmic pebble in the galactic ocean. Last year, the interstellar interloper ʻOumuamua passed through the inner Solar System. Originally […]
The story of John Couch Adams, “the man who failed to discover Neptune,” and his cosmic redemption. Perhaps its human nature to want to only think positive thoughts about our […]
Instead of nearly-circular ellipses, comets are extraordinarily elongated, or even on an exit path. Why so different? When you look at how the planets orbit in our Solar System, the […]
We’ve all heard the number: 4.5 billion years. But how do we know, and how certain are we that the Earth and Sun are the same age? Billions of years ago, […]
If December’s best natural sky show seems to get better every year, it isn’t your imagination. It’s science, and it’s spectacular! Every year, the Earth travels some 940 million kilometers […]
The discovery of the first-ever asteroid to arrive from interstellar space is full of lessons for us all. On October 19th, astronomers discovered an objectunlike any other we’d seen before: a […]
It’s the first, most naive question you might think to ask. The solution is a lot more complicated than you imagine. According to a large amount of evidence, the overwhelming majority […]
Sedna could be the very first known object from the Inner Oort Cloud. But time is running out to create and launch a mission. In 2003, scientists discovered an object beyond […]