We’ve all heard the number: 4.5 billion years. But how do we know, and how certain are we that the Earth and Sun are the same age? Billions of years ago, […]
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When it comes to the Solar System, all we have left are the survivors. At last, that might be enough to know what happened 4.5 billion years ago. We know what […]
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft taught us more than we ever imagined about Saturn. Could we do something similar for Uranus and Neptune? From where we are in the Solar System, looking out […]
Before we go venturing off to another star to look for life, why not look here? “If I had to describe myself to an alien I’d say I was bigger than […]
Dark energy is pushing distant galaxies apart from one another at an increasing rate. If the Big Rip hypothesis is true, things will only get worse from here. One of the […]
Elon Musk publishes a visionary paper on his company’s plans to colonize space.
Our most common fears of the “other” extend even into outer space. Here’s why those fears are baseless. “Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without […]
This mission will also help us better understand the core of our and other terrestrial planets, too.
That’s not how probability works. Or asteroids, for that matter. “Bringing an asteroid back to Earth? What’s that have to do with space exploration? If we were moving outward from there, […]
This isn’t an XZibit joke; it’s a real scientific question. And the answer may be that it’s possible after all. “People who work every day are kind of scared of things […]
Why do the asteroids that fall to Earth have the composition they do? A giant space collision 466 million years ago may be to blame. “Men of genius are often dull […]
There’s a lot to learn about other worlds, but you can’t learn it all without looking up. “One should not need a teleportation device to decide whether a newly discovered object […]
The Earth is round, Kyrie Irving. But not every world needs to be. “‘I’ll follow him to the ends of the earth,’ she sobbed. Yes, darling. But the earth doesn’t have […]
It isn’t about saving us from aliens at all. “To be on my very first spacewalk, to be outside, and to have contamination in my suit to the point that I […]
More massive is bigger, less massive is smaller, right? That’s not even half the story. “Billions of years from now our sun, then a distended red giant star, will have reduced […]
It might be the nearest supernova humanity will ever see. What will happen when it goes off? “Without these supernova explosions, there are no mist-covered swamps, computer chips, trilobites, Mozart or […]
Have you heard that life is unlikely around low-mass, red dwarf stars? It might be time to rethink that flawed conclusion. “Laws of nature mixed with evolutionary/historical contingencies allow for […]
With five moons orbiting it, Pluto is the richest rocky world known to date. How did it get that way? “We really expect the mission to be transformational. This is the […]
It’s discovered thousands. But how many more are out there? “How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our […]
Want humans to go to the Moon or Mars? Then let’s stop wasting time and resources and go do it! “We had this whole big beautiful place for discovery, and all […]
Before you even look through your telescope, you need to know where to begin. “If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control […]
Life may not be a rarity after all, but the result of a certain set of conditions.
And are likely due to subsurface water, geysers and an incredible process. “Have you entered the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in search of the depths?” –Job […]
If you thought the Kuiper belt was just icy worlds of various sizes orbiting like Pluto, think again. “There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times, and this […]
With gift ideas from as little as $11, there might be something to tickle anyone’s fancy. “It is worthy of notice that in Table VI the brighter variables have the longer […]
The greatest new anime of 2015 has some incredibly powerful feats. Here’s the physics of the most sensational one. “Human beings are strong because we have the ability to change […]
Might Armageddon come not from an asteroid or a comet, but by something completely unseen altogether? “Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say ‘what […]
What narrow misses did NASA’s Juno probe face on the five-year journey to Jupiter, and it’s acrobatic slip into the orbit of our solar system’s largest planet?
If we started all over again, could our Solar System’s second planet have been the inhabited one? “It was the Venus I had prayed to, it was my prayer, though […]
Are comets and asteroids periodic, and are we due? “Biological diversity is messy. It walks, it crawls, it swims, it swoops, it buzzes. But extinction is silent, and it has no […]