Science is the best tool we have for predicting the future. Here’s what the next year ought to bring. “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s […]
Search Results
You searched for: Jupiter
If you see a picture of a planet, can you identify which of the eight it is? “Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes […]
Scientists work on it, it’s consistent with science, and it hopes to be the biggest scientific breakthrough of all. But it’s missing one key ingredient. “As of now, string theorists […]
See it over the coming six weeks, before it disappears and heads out of the Solar System forever. “I have worn myself thin trying to find out about this comet, and […]
Before NASA’s Dawn spacecraft found white weirdness on Ceres, it had a close encounter with the second largest asteroid: Vesta. “I have announced this star as a comet, but since […]
The two best-explored outer Solar System worlds orbit one another. But no one was prepared for what New Horizons saw. “Just as a Chihuahua is still a dog, these ice dwarfs […]
And here’s the reason why, despite all you may have heard. “Thou shalt not embarrass thyself and thy colleagues by claiming false planets.” –Bill Cochran Late last year, one of the […]
“What was scattered, gathers.What was gathered, blows away.” –Heraclitus When you think of our Solar System, you think of planets (and other object) orbiting our central star, with moons (or […]
And the method teaches us just how far Pluto is from actual planethood. “Some kind of celestial event. No — no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should have sent […]
NASA’s Dawn Mission has finally photographed the full world at full resolution. Come see it! “Bringing an asteroid back to Earth? What’s that have to do with space exploration? If […]
How tides, gravity and lava give Io the youngest surface in the Solar System. “The crust, being so thin, must bend, if, over wide areas, it becomes loaded with glacial […]
And it couldn’t have done it without the heat from our world. “Cheap little rhymesA cheap little tuneAre sometimes as dangerousAs a sliver of the moon.” –Langston Hughes If you’ve ever […]
Discovering the face of Earth’s sister planet, Venus, beneath its cloudy veil. “Now, Venus is an extremely hostile environment, and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science […]
Dr. Christopher Watson explains the barriers to finding another haven for human life.
Catch MIT scientist Sara Seager take you to the cutting edge and into the future, with a live blog (plus commentary) right here! “Hundreds or thousands of years from now, […]
Out beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper belt, whose residents we can see. But what’s out there beyond that? “The great oak of Astronomy has been felled, and we are lost […]
Why do Vermeer’s paintings fascinate us so? Perhaps the reason lies behind a revolution in seeing in both art and science rooted in Vermeer’s 17th century Holland.
Saw “Solar System Questions” by xkcd? Here’s what science thinks it knows. “Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and, at last, they will come together. […]
We know that Einstein’s general relativity is superior to Newton’s gravity, but where did Newton go wrong? “To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or […]
How the Solar Eclipse of 1919 spelled the end for Newton. “Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing […]
Another world orbits the Sun once a year at the same distance as our planet. “The moon was like this awesome, romantic, mysterious thing, hanging up there in the sky […]
Do craters only come in isolation? These images will make you think again! “These spots have never been observed by anyone before me; and from my observations of them, often […]
All you need are clear skies, a telescope, and a plan. Make it a great one. “For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long […]
There are three things an idea must do to become a full-fledged scientific theory. How does the Multiverse stack up? “It’s hard to build models of inflation that don’t lead […]
As the Hubble Space Telescope nears its 25th anniversary, it never stops amazing us. “That I learned even as a three year-old that I see this world that is really […]
A series of mysterious white features lurk at the bottom of one of its most massive craters. Here’s what they could be, and how we’ll find out! “One of the […]
Is it possible that our problems indicate a flaw in the theory of gravity? “I soon became convinced… that all the theorizing would be empty brain exercise and therefore a […]
Image credit: © 2015 MotorTrend Magazine, via http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/suvs/1110_mopar_underground_jeep_and_ram_run_wild_at_moab/photo_06.html. How gravity teaches us that the mountains we see extend far underground. “Journalists often ask me when I go to the field, […]
New Horizons is closing in on what was once our Solar System’s most distant planet. How did it get there? “Even in hindsight, I would not change one whit of […]
The most important lessons about Earth come from looking outward. “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.” […]