From billions of miles away, a faint, single pixel shows us how precious and alone Earth truly is. There are people alive today who can remember a time where no human-made […]
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This is what we’ve learned from first object ever discovered to enter our Solar System from interstellar space. Billions of years ago, our Solar System was an extraordinarily different place […]
If you’ve ever wondered what truly lies beyond Neptune, this is one interview you won’t want to miss! Our Solar System formed some 4.6 billion years ago from a molecular cloud […]
The story of John Couch Adams, “the man who failed to discover Neptune,” and his cosmic redemption. Perhaps its human nature to want to only think positive thoughts about our […]
Future or extraterrestrial civilizations could create megastructures the size of a solar system.
You’d be amazed at what you can learn from even one single pixel. Over the past decade, owing largely to NASA’s Kepler mission, our knowledge of planets around star systems beyond […]
For the Pluto fans, another sad state of affairs: your favorite world won’t make it. Nothing on Earth lasts forever, and that’s a truth that even extends to all the objects […]
Mars will never look as big as the full Moon. But it isn’t even the biggest planet. From humanity’s perspective, the Sun and Moon always dominate Earth’s skies. The Moon and […]
A very clever idea says there’s a ninth Solar System planet, larger than Earth, far beyond Neptune. Here’s why most scientists think it’s not real. It’s been nearly three years since […]
It was captured by the Parker Solar Probe, which is currently studying the star.
A star orbiting past our galaxy’s supermassive black hole offered a chance to test relativity as never before. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is the […]
We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]
The ‘giant impact’ that led to Earth might not have been so giant, after all. A little over 4.5 billion years ago, our Solar System began to form. Somewhere in the […]
Our Universe cannot be described by normal matter alone. Vera Rubin’s work led the way. Ask an astrophysicist what our Universe is made of, and you’ll likely receive a shocking surprise. […]
We can explore the farthest reaches of the Universe, but can’t even complete our own cosmic backyard. The history of astronomy has been a history of receding horizons. The invention […]
The meaning—and range—of “habitable” goes much farther than we once thought.
Neither one reflects the other; they’re both blue for entirely different reasons. If you’ve ever been curious about the world you live in, you’ve probably wondered why the sky is […]
The solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, was the nail in the coffin of a Newtonian Universe. On May 29, 1919, the world changed forever. For hundreds of years, Isaac […]
Sedna could be the very first known object from the Inner Oort Cloud. But time is running out to create and launch a mission. In 2003, scientists discovered an object beyond […]
When the Universe gives us clues, we ignore them at our own peril. When you approach the world scientifically, you seek to gain knowledge about how it works by asking it […]
The Boomerang Nebula, in our galaxy, is even colder than completely empty space. Here’s how that’s possible. Imagine the coldest place you possibly can. Inside it, the particles that make […]
An entire Universe of possibilities await stars like our own, even after they run out of fuel. One of the most profound rules in all the Universe is that nothing lasts […]
The coming few years should really tell us a lot more about them.
What inspired the Mona Lisa, China’s Terracotta Warriors, and more?
And super-Earth, mini-Neptunes, and super-Jupiters aren’t among them. You’ll be surprised to learn why. Just 30 years ago, if you had asked an astronomer if there were planets around other stars […]
The cosmic records we have are meant to be broken, but oh, have we ever gone so far. The great cosmic abyss contains more that humanity can ever hope to see, […]
If your goal was to destroy the science of astronomy and astrophysics, this is exactly how you’d do it. One of the perks of being President of the United States of […]
All the planets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects out there all point to the same conclusion: it’s giant impacts or no moons at all. Out of all the rocky planets […]
Space X successfully launches TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite a.k.a. “The Planet Hunter.” NASA will use it to search for planets that may support extraterrestrial life.
A special isotope of plutonium is necessary for missions to Mars and beyond. But we don’t have enough, and aren’t making more fast enough. As 2018 comes to a close, NASA […]