The death throes of a Sun-like star announce its funeral to the whole galaxy. “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”–Rabindranath Tagore Image credit: Adam Block/Mount […]
Search Results
You searched for: nasa
Life on Earth may not be the only way. But could it be this different? This article is written by Jillian Scudder, currently a postdoctoral researcher at Sussex in the […]
It’s a wonderful potential technology for going interstellar. But in your lifetime? Don’t hold your breath. “Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We […]
Exploring and mapping the Universe? A great plan. But the math of spending billions on asteroid deflection doesn’t add up. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the […]
The force that has only been seen on the largest cosmic scales affects smaller ones, too. We just need to look well enough. “There are still so many questions to answer. […]
There are likely no more than five this big, this early in the entire Universe. “Based on our understanding of how galaxy clusters grow from the very beginning of our […]
Think we’d never do better from the ground than from space? This adaptive optics system is proving this wrong! “This event marks the culmination of many years of hard work on […]
Wanting to believe in the impossible can be far worse than keeping an open mind. “No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man […]
Don’t even think about getting anything other than this one! “No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.” –Quintus Ennius If you are (or you […]
The Universe may be truly infinite, but our understanding of it never will be. Here’s why. “To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not […]
The picture is real, but the UFO explanation? Surely we can do better. “It’s almost like I feel I’m just moving there, and I’m not coming back.”–Scott Kelly On his 233rd […]
As we all still recover from the Paris attacks, remember the beauty and joy of one of the most forgotten French discoveries. “Truth is more valuable if it takes you […]
“The Greatest” defeated all opponents when the heavyweight division was its richest. Has any physicist done the same? “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did […]
Before NASA’s Dawn spacecraft found white weirdness on Ceres, it had a close encounter with the second largest asteroid: Vesta. “I have announced this star as a comet, but since […]
From the Hubble Space Telescope, of course. Come view them all at once! “From our home on the Earth, we look out into the distances are strive to imagine the […]
Hawking’s greatest achievement is also the greatest source of misunderstanding. “Maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but only waves. It is just that […]
And what technology will it take for us to get there? “Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on […]
Both are beautiful gifts, but only one is a beautiful learning experience. “The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie […]
This development could lead to resources that may benefit future expeditions.
There’s a big, big difference between a “scientific” theory and all other types. It should make you more confident, not less. One of the most important things any expert hoping to […]
The most spectacular satellite system of any known planet, Saturn’s Rings are a sight like no other. “This then, I thought, as I looked round about me, is the representation […]
Even the cosmic home where our Solar System resides will someday meet it’s demise. But how? “Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new […]
The origin of life is one of the biggest open questions. Could it all have started before our planet was even born? “When you arise in the morning, think of […]
Dark matter may be cold and collisionless, but the strange behavior of planets just might lead to its detection. “Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if […]
And it couldn’t have done it without the heat from our world. “Cheap little rhymesA cheap little tuneAre sometimes as dangerousAs a sliver of the moon.” –Langston Hughes If you’ve ever […]
See it over the coming six weeks, before it disappears and heads out of the Solar System forever. “I have worn myself thin trying to find out about this comet, and […]
The similarities between the Universe and a living being are striking and surprising. Could larger entities than us be alive? “Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to […]
These cosmic optical illusions are more common than you think. “I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort where we overlap.” –Ani DiFranco If […]
If there is a quantum theory of gravity, is String Theory the only game in town? “I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to […]
How the future of astronomy — and something we can’t even see — might open up the dark Universe. This post is written by Sabine Hossenfelder, a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity & […]