Surprising Science — March 25, 2014

Throwing a Boomerang in Space

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What happens when you throw a boomerang in zero gravity? Japanese astronaut Takao Doi demonstrates on the International Space Station:

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Image credit: popofatticus/Flickr

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

Starts With A Bang

Why is “F = ma” still the most important equation in physics?

From high school through the professional ranks, physicists still take incredible lessons away from Newton’s second law.

Infographic displays spacecraft names and missions around the Sun, planets, and moons, illustrating the current and planned science fleet exploring the Solar System.

Starts With A Bang

American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history

Over the first half of 2025, the US has cut science as never before. This disaster for American science may be a gift to the rest of the world.

Circular astronomical image showing constellations and celestial objects labeled against a dark sky, reminiscent of a NASA PUNCH video sun corona visualization, with a timestamp of 2025-06-03 01:52 at the bottom left.

Starts With A Bang

Video: NASA’s PUNCH mission sees the Sun’s corona in action

Launched in March, the PUNCH mission has viewed two incredible coronal mass ejections, tracking them farther from the Sun than ever before.

A vast view of deep space, captured in one of NASA's most important images, displays numerous galaxies of varying shapes and colors against a dark backdrop scattered with distant stars.

Starts With A Bang

See NASA’s most important image in space telescope history

The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, was originally seen as a colossal mistake. This one image, taken in 1995, changed everything.

An older man with a white beard sits in a room, wearing a light blue shirt, hands clasped together. Bookshelves and artwork are visible in the background.

The Future

Kevin Kelly points a new way forward into the Age of AI

One of the most original and optimistic thinkers in America sketches some big ideas about what’s possible with AI in the next 25 years.

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