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Here is a glimpse of what our world would look like to a visitor from afar. 

Peter Ward: We will get hit again.  It is only a matter of time until we get hit by an asteroid the same size of what killed off the dinosaurs, should humanity last long enough, that is. 

Do changes in a gravitational field propagate instantaneously, at the speed of light, or at a different speed altogether? “The only problem with the speed of light, is it gets […]

From 30,000 feet above sea level, why aren’t the stars visible from an airplane? “Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free […]

The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there’s no place for it in the endeavor of science.

Bill Nye is hosting “Why With Nye,” an eight-part YouTube series focusing on NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter.

We all feel bad for Pluto, but it had its demotion coming. “I have announced this star as a comet, but since it is not accompanied by any nebulosity and, further, […]

Is the largest object in our galaxy — our central black hole — poised to devour a massive gas cloud? “What makes us love… is when we learn all these fantastic stories. Feeding the imagination […]

More than 400 years after Galileo’s first telescopic observations, we’re more certain than ever that the Earth is moving through space. How do we know? “Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and […]

The Universe has always been ready for us. Are we finally ready for it? “Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson In only a […]

How a “New Star” appearing in 1572 paved the way for us to truly begin understanding our Universe. “I conclude, therefore, that this star is not some kind of comet […]

How the second most common element in the Universe is being lost from Earth, most of it for good. “I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just […]

As part of this week’s Festival of the Planets celebration, University College London has made available to the public a selection of historic images from its archive. Included are glimpses of the surface of Venus.

Using data from space telescopes, including the now-sidelined Kepler, astronomers have identified cloud structures on Kepler-7b, a “hot Jupiter” exoplanet that was one of the first discovered.

Never mind Comet ISON: If all goes well, in January the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe will “wake up” in preparation for a rendezvous with Comet 67-P, currently hanging out in the vicinity of Jupiter.

Scientists are growing more confident that Jupiter’s moon could harbor life. The problem: Getting through its thick ice crust to the watery ocean beneath.

Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 was not a giant comet, but if you did the math – which astronomers did at the time – you would know just what a catastrophic impact it would have.  

The massive storm that wrapped itself around the planet in 2010-2011 seems to have dredged up water ice from an invisible lower atmospheric layer, according to NASA researchers.

Saturn, Venus, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter will all be visible in the August night skies, as will the annual Perseid meteors. A number of nebulas will also be easy to find among the constellations.

Ganymede and Europa have many of the conditions that could support life as we know it. We’ll find out if and when an internationally-sponsored probe — Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE — gets there in 2030.

Why the kind of knowledge you get by asking the Universe questions about itself is the most valuable type of knowledge there is. “I’m also uncomfortable with dogmatic believers; to my […]

Long assumed to be a sterile environment, Lake Vostok may very well host a living ecosystem, according to a new study. If life exists there, it may exist on other planets with similar conditions.

A new Kickstarter campaign seeks $200,000 to propel a CubeSat into Earth orbit and eventually deep space using a miniature propulsion engine.

Ron Miller has painted the planets as if they were the same distance from Earth as the Moon, in order to demonstrate their size.

If we are to ever reach beyond our own planet, possibly colonizing asteroids and Jupiter’s moon Europa, we need a better propellant system. Rocket scientists recommend nuclear power. 

You’ve undoubtedly heard the maxim “Life finds a way.” Well, if life has indeed found a way on one of the other trillions of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy, it would likely not be our way.

     Ideology often drives people to madness. History is full of frightening examples. The most recent may be California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a member of the House Science Committee, which […]

The icy surface of this Jupiter moon hides a vast body of liquid that most scientists believe is water. Thanks to improved spectrometry, they now believe that that water may be salty.

Comet ISON was first spotted well beyond Jupiter’s orbit, which makes it fairly large. If it makes it past the sun it could light up the night sky by this time next year.

A new paper says the “rogue planet” is drifting in space about 100 light-years away from Earth, raising speculations as to how many others are out there.