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Space Exploration
Does humanity have a moral imperative to seed life on lifeless worlds? And should we avoid colonizing a planet if life already exists there?
A next-generation instrument on a delayed rover may be the key to answering the question of life on Mars.
There may be a symmetrical interdependence between order and chaos.
When the Universe was first born, the ingredients necessary for life were nowhere to be found. Only our "lucky stars" enabled our existence.
Back in 1990, we hadn't discovered a single planet outside of our Solar System. Here are 10 facts that would've surprised every astronomer.
The nearby, bright star Fomalhaut had the first optically imaged planetary candidate. Using JWST's eyes, astronomers found so much more.
They're the most common type of exoplanet known today, and many astronomers have called them "super-habitable." None of that is true.
Mars, the red planet, was a world we knew almost nothing about until our first spacecraft visited it. In just ~50 years, how far we've come!
In the spirit of the 1969 moon landing, we now have a golden opportunity to pursue “nondisruptive” creative solutions.
This oddball system of three stars might be our best chance at finding nearby life in the Universe.
Many planets will eventually be devoured by their parent star. For the first time, we caught a star in the act, eating its innermost planet!
It's not about fairness. It's about using every possible advantage.
These high-mass, rapidly star-forming galaxies have called modern cosmology into question. But hi-res simulations show no tension at all.
Perhaps we should be searching for “other Mercurys” rather than “other Earths.”
Like Mars today, Venus used to be a sci-fi superstar. Recent discoveries could re-ignite our interest in Earth’s “evil twin.”
With infrared capabilities and image sharpness far beyond Hubble's limits, JWST looked at Hubble's deepest field, revealing so much more.
Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, finding a bland, featureless world. Now, in 2023, JWST's sights are similar. There's a reason for that.
Eternal twilight.
The next solar eclipse to occur over heavily populated areas is on April 8, 2024. For a spectacular show; here's where the best views are!
Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all uni-plate planets, and may always have been. Here's what's known about why Earth, uniquely, has plate tectonics.
Speeding through the Universe and leaving a wake of new stars, this runaway supermassive black hole is likely the first among thousands.
This beautiful JWST image of Wolf-Rayet star WR 124 has been called a "prelude to a supernova" by NASA. That might be entirely wrong.
Many impact craters on Earth have been erased thanks to wind, water, and plate tectonics. But scientists have clever ways to find them.
It's the best-known transcendental number of all-time, and March 14 (3/14 in many countries) is the perfect time to celebrate Pi (π) Day!
The nature of civilizational threats has changed in a mere decade.
Somewhere out there in the Universe is the heaviest neutron star, and elsewhere lies the lightest black hole. Where's the line between them?
In our Solar System, even the two brightest planets frequently align in our skies. But only rarely is it spectacularly visible from Earth.
JWST's revolutionary views arrive in high-resolution at infrared wavelengths. Without NASA's Spitzer first, it wouldn't have been possible.
The Fermi paradox (along with the subsequent Drake equation) is so difficult that even brilliant thinkers can make little dent in it.
Some of them have survived the wilds of space for billions of years.