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Even with leap years and long-term planning, our calendar won’t be good forever. Here’s why, and how to fix it.
From high school through the professional ranks, physicists never tire of Newton’s second law.
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 […]
Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where’s everyone else?
In a joint briefing at the 101st American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, NASA and NOAA revealed 2020’s scorching climate data.
It doesn’t propagate at infinite speeds, and that’s a problem for Newton. When you look at the Sun, the light you’re seeing isn’t the light that’s being emitted right now. Instead, […]
An unprecedented number of new satellites threatens the night sky as we know it. Will we act in time to save it?
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 […]
A new study looks at what would happen to human language on a long journey to other star systems.
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 […]
Before the next big, dangerous, incoming rock arrives.
Galaxies can have regions both hotter and colder than the background radiation of the Universe. When we talk about the depths of space, we get this picture in our heads […]
We’ve already observed three cases where it’s happened. When you look at an object in space, it’s pretty easy to tell if it’s a star or a planet. Stars are […]
It’s one of the two best meteor showers of the year. Don’t let the full Moon stop you. Every year, as the Earth intercepts the debris streams of comets and asteroids […]
Yes, the Big Bang is real, but what about what came before? If you ask anyone about the origin of some phenomenon that we’ve observed, they’ll usually default to the same […]
The object, originally dubbed “Ultima Thule,” was renamed to “Arrokoth” due to the connection between the word “Thule” and the Nazis.
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 […]
The largest moon in our Solar System, often overlooked, is a water-rich world. Does that mean life? Here on Earth, life took hold very early on in our planet’s history, and […]
And Dr. Jill Tarter never once lost her composure.
Leap years will only get us through the next few thousand years before we have to fix it. With every year that passes, we assume that two separate things will both […]
New research proposes possible origins of the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua.
From the right place at the right time, it’s a sight unlike any you’ll find on Earth. In our Solar System, any planet with moons has a chance for a solar […]
While the world considers future trips to Mars, two astrophysicists make a case for exploring asteroids.
Objects coming into our solar system have an origins story to tell.
There are exposed planetary cores orbiting stars, and we may have already found them. When we take a look at the planets in our Solar System, there’s a pretty clear difference […]
Astrophysicist Michelle Thaller talks ISS and why NICER is so important.
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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 planet that we are searching for is a little bit smaller and closer than we originally thought.
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Forget about alien nonsense. The Universe as it actually is doesn’t need any embellishments to be interesting. In our Solar System, the planets, moons, asteroids, comets and other masses are […]