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 […]
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No, it won’t be as big as the moon, as some have claimed. Still, it will be a nice show for the next month or so.
Two of our biggest science-fiction dreams might not remain fiction for much longer. Here’s how 21st-century science could make it real. For as long as human beings have looked up at […]
The probe, no larger than a car, will be the closest a man-made object has ever gotten to the sun. We will be able to study and see it like we’ve never seen it before.
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 […]
The history of life on Earth took many meandering turns before it gave rise to us. When Earth first formed, all the raw ingredients for life — atoms, molecules, a potentially habitable planet […]
We’re a long way from the beginnings of life on Earth. Here’s the key to how we got there. The Universe was already two-thirds of its present age by the time […]
In all the years of NASA, we’ve never touched the Sun before. Here’s why it’s so hard. This past weekend, NASA successfully launched the Parker Solar Probe: the first spacecraft that […]
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 […]
If you photograph the Sun at the same time every day, you get a bizarre figure-8 shape: an analemma. Here’s why. At any time of day, you could theoretically set up […]
Even though 18,000 species are discovered and named each year we are still losing ground, writes the College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
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 […]
The natural world evolved many pop culture frights long before storytellers used them to terrify us.
Some of the meteorites that strike our planet originate from our red neighbor, Mars. Here’s how we know. As the planets orbit the Sun, well-separated from one another, we tend to […]
Here on Earth, all the right conditions occurred for intelligent life to come about, but the nearest aliens, if they’re on another world, are light years away. But it doesn’t […]
The most surefire, easily-seen signature of life on Earth might be a cosmic red herring around other worlds. In our quest for life beyond the Solar System, it makes sense to […]
What do guns, roses, and Guns N’ Roses have in common? They’re all awesome. And all of them are in our weekly random fact roundup.
Only 8 worlds make the astronomical cut as planets. Here are the 10 fascinating bodies that didn’t make it. Astronomically, bodies within the Solar System must achieve three criteria in order […]
It’s a great ambition of science enthusiasts all over the globe. It’s also a terrible idea. If you want to take the most pristine, unpolluted images of the Universe, your best […]
We aren’t lunarly exclusive. Earth has a few minimoons whizzing around us, including one that comes back into our orbit every 20 years or so.
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 […]
Multi-messenger astronomy further widens our window to the universe.
Even if it can’t detect them directly, we’ll learn the answer. Here’s how. Perhaps the most revolutionary find of the past generation, when we think about the Universe beyond Earth, is […]
The ingredients for life are everywhere, but so far the only life we know of comes from Earth. Here’s how that might change. Ever since human beings first turned our eyes […]
Elegance, beauty, and mathematical precision makes for a compelling story and an exquisite model. But it doesn’t make it right. Scientific theories, at their best, are simple, straightforward, full of predictive […]
Sibling rivalries can lead to some impressive moments in history, how did these seven sets of siblings do?
Fill up your gas tank, no matter how hot it is, with confidence and safety from anywhere on Earth. For most of the northern hemisphere, summer is in full swing. Along […]
Finding the ingredients for life is a very different prospect than finding the products of life. Perhaps the greatest quest in science today is to find life that originated beyond Earth. […]
One of the most popular viral videos about space is dead wrong. But it gives us a chance to learn something incredible. There are a lot of moving parts to […]
It’s the first, most naive question you might think to ask. The solution is a lot more complicated than you imagine. According to a large amount of evidence, the overwhelming majority […]