After a generation, we’re finally getting another close-up view. With the science we’re learning, we just might solve its mysteries. “Jupiter instead cooled down below the threshold for fusion, but […]
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Nothing has ever come closer than NASA’s Voyager 1, nearly 40 years ago. Last week, all that changed. “Juno will peer hundreds of miles downward into the atmosphere with its microwave […]
Dark energy is pushing distant galaxies apart from one another at an increasing rate. If the Big Rip hypothesis is true, things will only get worse from here. One of the […]
The most unusual star known has finally had its dimming scientifically explained. Here’s the unusual, dusty resolution. The science of planet-hunting has truly taken off in the 21st century, with […]
The Planetary Habitability Laboratory has made up some periodic tables of all of the confirmed and suspected exoplanets so far, plus planetary bodies in our own solar system.
How three factors come together to unfreeze the ice, and unlock the potential for extraterrestrial life. “Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a […]
The ‘big discovery’ is nothing of the kind. We need a new planet-finding mission to probe the next frontier. Last week, NASA dropped a bombshell that it’s Kepler mission — the greatest […]
Watch what it might look like to travel from the sun to Jupiter at the speed of light.
When we place the known objects in the Solar System in order, four inner, rocky worlds and four, outer, giant worlds stand out. Traditionally, these were defined as planets. Will […]
If the bolide had hit just 30 seconds later, we’d be looking at a very different Earth.
We’re taught that the most massive stars in the Universe all die in supernovae. We were taught wrong. Create a star that’s massive enough, and it won’t go out with a […]
If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, consider these 10 gifts, good any time of year! One of the hardest things when it comes to holiday shopping is to find […]
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 […]
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 […]
Even our scientific heroes can’t be right about everything. Let’s learn the lessons that they never did. In the 1960s, a young theoretical physicist named Stephen Hawking rose to prominence as […]
You might think Jupiter is large, but you’ll be surprised at what happens if you try and make it larger! “A few centuries ago, the pioneer navigators learnt the size and […]
Everything is made of quarks, leptons, photons, and gluons, yet everything comes with a finite, non-zero size. “There’s something about sitting alone in the dark that reminds you how big the […]
The Cassini-Huygens telescope has spent the better part of the last two decades finding out more about our galaxy than we could possibly dream of. Here’s 14 of the coolest things it has found out.
Before we go venturing off to another star to look for life, why not look here? “If I had to describe myself to an alien I’d say I was bigger than […]
It would be disappointing and surprising if Earth were the only template for habitability in the Universe.
Just because a distant body has ice doesn’t mean it’ll ever have liquid water.
This isn’t an XZibit joke; it’s a real scientific question. And the answer may be that it’s possible after all. “People who work every day are kind of scared of things […]
There’s no way to frame this as anything other than a disaster for humanity. This article was originally written one week ago, on the day the FY2019 budget was released […]
No other object this large has come so close to Earth in millions of years. In the 5th millennium, we might suffer the consequences. “Honestly, if you’re given the choice […]
One of astronomy’s most iconic sights in an artifact of faulty optics. Here’s how a new, great design will overcome it. When you look out at the greatest images of the […]
If you think we’ve seen all there is to see in the Universe, you’re about to have your imagination unlocked. “Hubble often takes images of distant gravitationally lensed galaxies to […]
More massive is bigger, less massive is smaller, right? That’s not even half the story. “Billions of years from now our sun, then a distended red giant star, will have reduced […]
What if alien life — or even intelligence — don’t look like what we’re searching for? When the original Star Trek premiered, it was revolutionary for depicting sentient, intelligent species other than humans, living […]
NASA scientists are sifting through some of the last transmissions from Cassini. And what they’re finding are kittens. You read that right.
Everyone loves Europa, says Neil deGrasse Tyson. Why? It’s a strong bet for finding life in our solar system, and it’s even more amazing because it breaks all the rules.
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