August 3, 2013

Mercury, Fully Mapped in All Its Glory

What does Mercury's surface look like?

What does Mercury’s surface look like?

The video below will give you an exaggerated (false color) view. However, what it also reveals is detailed observations of the planet’s crust that have been recorded since the robotic Messenger spacecraft first passed Mercury in 2008 and began orbiting in 2011.

The entire surface of Mercury has since been mapped.

The results are presented in this spectacular video here:

Or click here.

Image Credit: NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab/Carnegie Inst. Washington

Starts With A Bang

The unsurprising non-detection of intelligent aliens

Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where's everyone else?

A person in a dark robe wielding a glowing red lightsaber on a desert dune under a night sky with a large crescent moon and a visible planet.

High Culture

Does science fiction shape the future?

Six visionary science fiction authors on the social impact of their work.

A human brain preserved in a clear glass container filled with a yellowish preserving fluid, set against a bright, light green background.

13.8

The key problem with the “brain in a vat” thought experiment

Even with the best technology imaginable, you'd probably never be able to exist as a consciously aware brain in a vat.

A dramatic solar eclipse with a radiant ring of fire visible around the moon, set against a backdrop of clouds and a sunburst.

13.8

A cosmic coincidence: What eclipses tell us about Earth

Total eclipses are a product of a strange and almost eerie cosmic coincidence — one that makes Earth an even rarer world in the galaxy and, by proxy, in the Universe.

Starts With A Bang

If photons have mass, could they explain dark matter?

Our Universe requires dark matter in order to make sense of things, astrophysically. Could massive photons do the trick?

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