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 […]
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JWST just found its first transiting exoplanet, and it’s 99% the size of Earth. But with no atmosphere seen, perhaps air is truly rare.
65 million years ago, a massive asteroid struck Earth. Not only did Jupiter not stop it, but it probably caused the impact itself.
In our Solar System, even the two brightest planets frequently align in our skies. But only rarely is it spectacularly visible from Earth.
Einstein’s “happiest thought” led to General Relativity’s formulation. Would a different profound insight have led us forever astray?
We just observed the first ‘lunar formation’ in an exoplanetary system. This one image, above, is the first to show moons actively forming around a planet. This colourful image shows […]
The largest moon around our last planet didn’t originate with Neptune. When it comes to the moons of our Solar System, there’s only one planet that doesn’t fit in with our […]
The Universe is grand, awe-inspiring, and greater than we likely imagine. Even astrophysicists get anxious thinking about it, but we cope.
Jupiter’s mysterious auroral events are caused by vibrating waves of plasma.
Tiny fluctuations in old Kepler data reveals four runaway planets that are reminiscent of Earth.
Phobos and Deimos only have two explanations, and neither one adds up.
The sky is blue. The oceans are blue. While science can explain them both, the reasons for each are entirely different.
Science is for everyone, even those possessing strongly held beliefs that seem to conflict with the best available evidence.
Want some crazy space phenomena? You don’t have to leave the neighborhood for it.
A newly discovered “ultrahot Jupiter” has the shortest orbit of any known gas giant.
NASA has finally chosen which flagship mission, like Hubble and JWST, will launch in ~2040. Detecting alien life is now a reachable goal.
NASA is creating a planet habitability index, and Earth may not be at the top. With our current data, ranking habitability is guesswork.
Scientists find routes using arches of chaos that can lead to much faster space travel.
Unless you have a critical mass of heavy elements when your star first forms, planets, including rocky ones, are practically impossible.
Even though the leftover glow from the Big Bang creates a bath of radiation at only 2.725 K, some places in the Universe get even colder.
Astronomers possibly solve the mystery of how the enormous Oort cloud, with over 100 billion comet-like objects, was formed.
As long as it remains operational, we’ll have a chance to conduct groundbreaking science with it. In the history of spaceflight, only five spacecraft ever launched by humanity possess enough energy […]
And why, even at its faintest, it always outshines every other star and planet. If you’ve been looking to the west after sunset recently, you may have noticed that there’s one […]
Saturn’s Iapetus, discovered way back in 1671, has three bizarre features that science still can’t fully explain.
If dark matter exists in a large halo in our galaxy, made up of particles, then it’s passing through us constantly. But how much?
In all of science, no figures have changed the world more than Einstein and Newton. Will anyone ever be as revolutionary again?
Even at its faintest, Venus always outshines every other star and planet that’s visible from Earth, and then some!
You might be inclined to modify gravity instead, but those ideas have grossly unequal evidence supporting them. What is it, exactly, that you’re supposed to do when the predictions of […]
And the one step we can take to show extraterrestrials we’re figuring it out. Every year, Earth’s meteor showers accomplish two important tasks. This composite photograph shows a large number of […]
Despite being the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury “only” reaches 800 °F at its hottest. Venus is always hotter, even at night.