It’s time to bust one of the biggest myths about where the night sky’s most spectacular, seasonal shows come from. Meteor showers are one of the night sky’s most spectacular sights […]
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NASA just cancelled its only lunar rover in development, despite President Donald Trump’s orders to expand lunar expeditions.
Earth Day is over for this year, but what it means for our future is still being talked about.
Scientists have been probing our solar system for extraterrestrial life.
Most people think human extinction would be bad. These people aren’t philosophers.
Mining asteroids might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but there are companies and a few governments already working hard to make it real.
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. […]
The reason why is simple, and should apply to every solar system like our own. On January 3rd, 2019, Earth reached the point in its orbit where it’s at its closest […]
The Solar System’s outermost, undisputed planet wasn’t discovered until the 19th century. Here’s how you can easily find it yourself this December. There’s no greater scientific thrill than discovering something […]
The next gold rush won’t be in the hills of California. It’ll be in space. There’s gold in them thar skies!
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If the bolide had hit just 30 seconds later, we’d be looking at a very different Earth.
The Swift-Tuttle comet is the source of the lovely Perseid meteor shower each August. It’s also getting closer and closer, making it “the single most dangerous object known to humanity.”
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 […]
A little peek into our past reveals tantalizing details.
Diamonds can be formed in one of four fascinating ways.
This meteorite is the oldest known volcanic rock in the solar system, dated at 4,565,000,000 years old.
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If the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, promoted by Stephen Hawking, works exactly as planned, it could lead to disaster. Imagine yourself on a world not so different from Earth, orbiting a […]
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is encouraging aerospace companies to up their game after successfully launching the most powerful rocket since NASA’s Saturn V.
At ground zero, Trinitite, the green, glassy substance found in the area, is still radioactive and must not be picked up. The Trinity Site was where the first atomic bomb […]
The line between science and pseudoscience is imperceptible to most. Here’s how you can catch it in yourself. When it comes to science, the first principle is that you must […]
A perspective from Brother Guy Consolmagno, astronomer and theologian.
While the Patriots battle the Eagles during Super Bowl LII, asteroid AJ129 is flying pretty close to Earth, cosmically speaking. But how close exactly will it be, and should you be concerned?
It may have been captured by Neptune since it formed, but Triton remains king of the Kuiper belt. Our Solar System is arguably the most well-studied corner of the Universe, with […]
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 […]
Meteorites could be sowing life throughout the galaxy.
From millions of miles to millions of light years, there’s nothing else that leaves trails like this. When you point your telescope at the distant Universe, observing a faint, massive object […]
There’s nothing new, recent, or remarkable about it. It’s just a typical cosmic pebble in the galactic ocean. Last year, the interstellar interloper ʻOumuamua passed through the inner Solar System. Originally […]
Instead of nearly-circular ellipses, comets are extraordinarily elongated, or even on an exit path. Why so different? When you look at how the planets orbit in our Solar System, the […]
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, […]
