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 […]
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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 […]
With the right material at the right temperature and a magnetic track, physics allows you to never lose energy. The idea of levitating off the ground has been a staple of […]
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.
It’s not simply Hubble’s Law anymore, but the real history is far more complex than the stories you’ve heard. One of the most mind-blowing facts in our existence is that space […]
What do Finland, religious animals, the American economy, fish, and Walmart have in common? They were all part of our comments of the week. Did you make the cut?
The bacteria C. metallidurans is able to take trace amounts of gold and copper and turn it into teeny tiny gold nuggets a few nanometers in size.
When we place the known objects in the Solar System in order, four inner, rocky worlds and four, outer, giant worlds stand out. Traditionally, these were defined as planets. Will […]
Of all the experiments performed and measurements made involving fundamental particles, none has ever violated the Standard Model. Until now. If there’s one thing you can count on physicists for, it’s […]
The probe, no larger than a car, will be the closest a man-made object has ever gotten to the sun. We will be able to study and see it like we’ve never seen it before.
Choosing a diet is hard for many people. But it doesn’t have to be.
We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]
The ices and rock aren’t green, and neither are the tails. So where does a comet’s green color come from? Every so often, with extreme regularity, comets will plunge from beyond […]
Elegance, beauty, and mathematical precision makes for a compelling story and an exquisite model. But it doesn’t make it right. Scientific theories, at their best, are simple, straightforward, full of predictive […]
Fill up your gas tank, no matter how hot it is, with confidence and safety from anywhere on Earth. For most of the northern hemisphere, summer is in full swing. Along […]
If everything was hot, dense, and super close-together at the Big Bang, what kept us from collapsing into a singularity? The Big Bang is one of the most counterintuitive ideas […]
Even if it can’t detect them directly, we’ll learn the answer. Here’s how. Perhaps the most revolutionary find of the past generation, when we think about the Universe beyond Earth, is […]
It’s the first, most naive question you might think to ask. The solution is a lot more complicated than you imagine. According to a large amount of evidence, the overwhelming majority […]
Scientists are about to set new standards for the kilogram, ampere, mole, and kelvins.
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 […]
NASA just cancelled its only lunar rover in development, despite President Donald Trump’s orders to expand lunar expeditions.
Kansas has launched such an ambitious educational project that public officials are likening it to the NASA moon missions of the 1960s.
The possibilities were almost limitless, so why does everything line up? Our Solar System is an orderly place, with the four inner planets, the asteroid belt, and the gas giant worlds […]
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 […]
The ‘big discovery’ is nothing of the kind. We need a new planet-finding mission to probe the next frontier. Last week, NASA dropped a bombshell that it’s Kepler mission — the greatest […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Valentine’s Day has a surprisingly raunchy history, going back thousands of years.