From high school through the professional ranks, physicists never tire of Newton’s second law.
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Rocks from two hundred million years ago show us how everything died and how nothing is new.
Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where’s everyone else?
A leading British space scientist thinks there is life under the ice sheets of Europa.
The rings are raining down onto the planet, and disappearing surprisingly fast. 4.5 billion years ago, our Solar System first formed. Protoplanetary disks, which all solar systems are thought to […]
A new study finds the rocks that first formed Earth carried with them enough hydrogen for three times the water we have today.
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 […]
We’re not made out of the densest elements, but we’re the densest planet nonetheless. Here’s why. Of all the planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids and more in the Solar System, only […]
Help future Mars rovers better navigate the red planet’s treacherous terrain.
The process of digging into hard questions makes the moment of discovery all the more satisfying.
In a joint briefing at the 101st American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, NASA and NOAA revealed 2020’s scorching climate data.
An unprecedented number of new satellites threatens the night sky as we know it. Will we act in time to save it?
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A new study looks at what would happen to human language on a long journey to other star systems.
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 […]
Before the next big, dangerous, incoming rock arrives.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
And Dr. Jill Tarter never once lost her composure.
The object, originally dubbed “Ultima Thule,” was renamed to “Arrokoth” due to the connection between the word “Thule” and the Nazis.
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 […]
New research proposes possible origins of the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua.
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 […]
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 […]