Search Results

Earth, the only rocky planet with a large, massive satellite, is greatly affected by the Moon. Destroying it would cause 7 major changes.

The most iconic, longest-lived space telescope of all, NASA’s Hubble, is experiencing orbital decay as the solar cycle peaks. Here’s why.

On June 20, 2024, the summer solstice occurs at its earliest moment since 1796: when George Washington was President of the USA. Here’s why.

In ~7 billion years, our Sun will run out of fuel and die. So will every star, eventually. Here are the different fates they’ll encounter.

The 5th brightest star in our night sky is young, blue, and apparently devoid of massive planets. New JWST observations deepen the mystery.

2023 is an exciting time for the study of quark-gluon plasmas.

In the early stages of our Solar System, there were three life-friendly planets: Venus, Earth, and Mars. Only Earth thrived. Here’s why.

On Saturday, October 14, a solar eclipse crosses North and South America. Here are 4 quick, easy, low-tech activities for everyone to enjoy!

Thanks to observations of gravitational waves, scientists were able to settle a longstanding debate over the speed of gravity.

Mars and Earth were sister planets in many ways, with early similar conditions. Why did Mars die? The leading explanation isn’t universal.

Total eclipses are a product of a strange and almost eerie cosmic coincidence — one that makes Earth an even rarer world in the galaxy and, by proxy, in the Universe.

We see objects whose light only arrives just now. But we see them as they were in the past: when that now-arriving light was first emitted.

There are plenty of life-friendly stellar systems in the Universe today. But at some point in the far future, life’s final extinction will occur.

The first stars took tens or even hundreds of millions of years to form, and then died in the cosmic blink of an eye. Here’s how.

Leap day only comes once every four years, including in 2024. But the reason we have it, including when we do and don’t, may surprise you.

The Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887, despite expectations, revealed a null result: no effect. The implications were revolutionary.

Known as orphaned planets, rogue planets, or planets without parent stars, these “outliers” might be the most common type of planet overall.

In logic, ‘reductio ad absurdum’ shows how flawed arguments fall apart. Our absurd Universe, however, often defies our intuitive reasoning.

Many of us look at black holes as cosmic vacuum cleaners: sucking in everything in their vicinity. But it turns out they don’t suck at all.

Some think the reason fundamental scientific revolutions are so rare is because of groupthink. It’s not; it’s hard to mess with success.

Sun-like stars live for around 10 billion years, but our Universe is only 13.8 billion years old. So what’s the maximum lifetime for a star?

A deep dive into the chaotic journey of star formation.

The race to find dark matter could grow more complex with high-energy neutrino interference.

Due to chaos, it was long thought that planets couldn’t stably orbit systems containing three stars. GW Orionis is the first counterexample.

Want to avoid getting “spaghettified” by a black hole? Steer clear of the smaller ones.

Though Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” is a classic military treatise, its advice applies to all manner of conflict.

The closest known star that will soon undergo a core-collapse supernova is Betelgeuse, just 640 light-years away. Here’s what we’ll observe.

Peaking on the night of August 11/12, up to 100 bright meteors per hour will be visible. Here’s how to make the most of it.

Although we still don’t know the question, we know that the answer to life, the Universe, and everything is 42. Here are 5 possibilities.

Gravitational waves are the last signatures that are emitted by merging black holes. What happens when these two phenomena meet in space?