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Space Exploration
Our outer Solar System, from Jupiter to Neptune, isn’t unique after all. In the early 1990s, scientists began detecting the first planets orbiting stars other than the Sun: exoplanets. The easiest […]
Our planet is rare, precious, and fragile. It’s up to all of us to be its steward. With the advent of rocketry and spaceflight, our cosmic perspective changed forever. The very […]
Now that we’ve seen our first one, we want more, and we want them better. Here’s how to get there. To resolve any astronomical object, you must achieve resolutions superior to […]
If parallel Universes or the multiverse are real, we might someday encounter a visitor who hails from another one. Here’s what to do. There are a lot of things that are […]
We assume that life is ubiquitous in the Universe. But what if it’s just us? When it comes to the question of extraterrestrial life, humans optimistically assume the Universe is prolific. […]
If you think we’ve done a great job with planet-finding so far, just wait until you learn what’s possible with microlensing! When we think about finding planets in the Universe, […]
In all the Universe, there’s only one Earth. But can we find the other worlds that are like ours? Even though the ingredients for life have been confirmed to be practically […]
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 […]
Earth wasn’t the only potentially habitable planet in the early Solar System. What happened to Mars? If you could travel back in time to the early stages of the Solar System, […]
In order to reap the greatest rewards, we have to think big and invest big. One of these four missions will deliver like never before. When it comes to exploring the […]
If you’re careful enough, you can learn more about the Solar System than you ever imagined. This year, on March 20th, the full Moon will illuminate the night sky. With […]
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 […]
50 years ago, Apollo 9 launched. Without it, we never would’ve landed on the Moon. The Apollo program is most famous for its greatest achievement: taking humanity to the Moon. It […]
We can see light from the atoms in the Universe before the first stars form. And no, I don’t mean from the CMB! After the Big Bang, it took only a […]
Happy birthday to Pluto, discovered on this day in 1930. Pluto, first discovered in 1930, was no more than a distant dot in our most powerful telescopes. Clyde Tombaugh’s original images […]
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 […]
The first planet beyond ‘naked eye’ astronomy will pass within just 1° of Mars. Although there are eight major planets in the Solar System, most of us never see Uranus or […]
We know that life is possible on an Earth-like world around a Sun-like star. But can it find a way on a Super-Earth? When it comes to the origin of […]
Only 8 worlds make the astronomical cut as planets. Here are the 10 fascinating bodies that didn’t make it. Astronomically, bodies within the Solar System must achieve three criteria in order […]
Although the great Martian dust storm of 2018 may have ended its life, its accomplishments will live on forever. Note: This article was originally published on January 25, 2019 on Forbes. […]
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 […]
We’d never flown past or imaged a small, isolated Kuiper belt object before. Here’s what we know so far. As 2018 ended and 2019 began, NASA’s New Horizons flew past its […]
The ability to instantaneously jump from one location in space to another clearly violates the laws of physics. Or does it? There are a few rules in the Universe that seem […]
Kepler showed us that the Universe is full of planets around other stars. TESS is giving us our next great leap. It’s been nearly a decade since NASA’s Kepler mission first […]
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 […]
On January 20/21, half of Earth will experience a total lunar eclipse. For the first time in 19 years, this includes all of North and South America. When the Sun, Earth, […]
If you photograph the Sun at the same time every day, you get a bizarre figure-8 shape: an analemma. Here’s why. At any time of day, you could theoretically set up […]
While nothing is ever certain about the future, here are 10 great achievements you can bet on. Every year, unexpected scientific discoveries challenge what we know. Observations using the Atacama Large […]
Sometimes, the biggest answers to the deepest questions come in the most unexpected of places. In the Solar System, anything out past Neptune is generally considered to be the outer reaches […]
Despite being 28 years old and having a gyroscope failure, Hubble still delivered these 10 amazing snapshots in 2018. Year after year since its 1990 launch, Hubble keeps revolutionizing our view […]