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 […]
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You searched for: Mercury
It’s all about holding on to the heat you have.
The company markedly outperformed Wall Street’s expectations in the third quarter of 2018.
It’s very different from the colloquial meanings of “true-and-false” or “right-and-wrong.” In many ways, the human endeavor of science is the ultimate pursuit of truth. By asking the natural world […]
All the planets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects out there all point to the same conclusion: it’s giant impacts or no moons at all. Out of all the rocky planets […]
Despite itself, this collection of awful cartography may just make a few useful observations.
Einstein’s explanation is the only one that works. When Newton first proposed the law of universal gravitation, it marked the very first time that we realized the same rule governing how […]
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 […]
The Boring Company plans to build a new tunnel system that would connect residential garages to an underground hyperloop via elevator, potentially enabling people to someday enter the futuristic public transit system by simply stepping into their parked cars.
It’s rare but spectacular when the Moon passes in front of another planet. Here’s how to see it. From our perspective on Earth, the night sky appears virtually unchanged with the […]
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 […]
When the Universe gives us clues, we ignore them at our own peril. When you approach the world scientifically, you seek to gain knowledge about how it works by asking it […]
The densest objects in the Universe are also the most difficult to destroy. But eventually, destruction always prevails. There are quite a few ways to make the black holes we […]
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 […]
If a star spins and then collapses, what happens to its angular momentum? The most common way to form a black hole in the Universe is to have a massive […]
Biodiversity refers to genetic diversity within species, diversity between species, and diversity of ecosystems. We take a look at all three.
About twice the size of Earth, 503b orbits its own star every six days.
We’ve put so much together about the Universe. Could it all come tumbling down? We’re always on the lookout for the next big thing, and even our best guesswork is often […]
A massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way and a single star did it.
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.
Every physical theory has constants in it. The gravitational constant is remarkably uncertain. When we first began formulating physical laws, we did so empirically: through experiments. Drop a ball off […]
The fundraiser started on Saturday morning with a goal of $1,500, but at one point on Monday the campaign was earning $4,000 every minute.
There’s a reason you’re not motivated when you smoke weed: it ruins your episodic memory.
Once the permafrost thaws, it’s the beginning of the end for the aquatic food chain.
The heaviest elements in the periodic table have their own unique story. No, they don’t come from a supernova. When it comes to the elements of the Universe, every one […]
All the other planets have craters, icecaps, clouds, or a rich, banded structure. But not Uranus. The eight major planets of the Solar System all possess their own unique features. The […]
The heatwave scorching Britain is revealing the outline of ancient buildings – some previously unknown to archaeologists
If you thought LIGO’s recent discoveries were profound and unusual, wait until you meet OJ 287. Recently, LIGO has revolutionized our knowledge of the Universe by discovering merging black holes. The […]
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 […]
This is what we’ve learned from first object ever discovered to enter our Solar System from interstellar space. Billions of years ago, our Solar System was an extraordinarily different place […]