And what can it teach us about our Solar System’s earliest days? In many ways, astronomy is unique among the sciences. In every other field, you have the ability to design […]
Search Results
You searched for: Asteroid Belt
Each year in mid-August, Earth plows through the debris stream of an enormous comet, creating the Perseids. 2023’s show will be magnificent!
If there are human-sized creatures walking around on other planets, would we be able to view them directly?
Phobos and Deimos only have two explanations, and neither one adds up.
Scientists find routes using arches of chaos that can lead to much faster space travel.
Once science operations begin for James Webb, we’ll never look at the Universe the same way again. Here’s what everyone should know.
Our Solar System’s outer reaches, and what’s in them, was predicted long before the first Oort Cloud object was ever discovered.
The most unique interloper into our Solar System has a natural explanation that fits perfectly — no aliens required.
Based on the atoms that they’re made out of, the innermost planet should always be the densest. Here’s why Earth beats Mercury, hands down.
Think there are habitable super-Earths out there? Think again. Here in our Solar System, we have two very distinct types of planets: small, terrestrial, rocky worlds, with thin (or no) atmospheres […]
If a large asteroid strikes Earth, it has the potential to release an enormous amount of energy, leading to local or even global catastrophes. The strike that led to the […]
In the largest star-forming region close to Earth, JWST found hundreds of planetary-mass objects. How do these free-floating planets form?
The stars, planets, and many moons are extremely round. Why don’t they take other shapes?
On the morning of June 30, 1908, an explosion of more than 10 megatons occurred above the sparsely populated Siberian Taiga. What caused the so-called Tunguska event?
Newton thought that gravitation would happen instantly, propagating at infinite speeds. Einstein showed otherwise; gravity isn’t instant.
The definitive answer requires better, unbiased data. Despite all the advances that have occurred in human history, one extraordinary puzzle still remains right in our own backyard: we aren’t sure how […]
Astronomers possibly solve the mystery of how the enormous Oort cloud, with over 100 billion comet-like objects, was formed.
Since the time of Galileo, Saturn’s rings have remained an unexplained mystery. A new idea may have finally solved the longstanding puzzle.
Debris from Pluto-sized collisions, not aliens, are streaming through the galaxy. In 2017, scientists discovered an object passing through our Solar System that was unlike anything else we had ever seen. […]
The meteorites suggest astronomers may have small, early planets wrong.
While Mars is known as a frozen, red planet today, it has all the evidence we could ask for of a watery past, lasting for approximately the first 1.5 billion […]
If dark energy gets stronger with time, our fate could be an utter catastrophe. When it comes to the entire Universe, one of the biggest existential questions we’re capable of […]
Valles Marineris is the Solar System’s grandest canyon, many times longer, wider, and deeper than the Grand Canyon. What scarred Mars so?
A 71% wet Mars would have two major land masses and one giant ‘Medimartian Sea.’
Finding alien technology on the seafloor would be truly incredible. This extraordinary claim, however, is debunked by the actual evidence.
Science can teach us so much about our planet, but something more must compel us to take care of it. If you want to understand our planet, the best way to […]
The Sun will eventually become a red giant star, swallowing Mercury and Venus in the process. But what will happen to Earth? There are a few existential questions we can ask […]
There’s more light than we can account for, and we’ve just measured it robustly for the first time. When we look out at the darkest night skies available on Earth, even […]
With launch costs dropping and enormous numbers of new satellites filling the sky, can’t we just do it all from space?
It peaks the nights of August 11–13, but it’s no longer the year’s most reliable meteor shower. Every year, beginning in mid-July, planet Earth commences passing through an enormous debris […]