Michio Kaku forecasts the future of space travel

Mega-rich entrepreneurs are taking us where no human being has gone before.

  • During the first golden era of space exploration, we went to the moon. Then we sort of dropped the ball for 50 years.
  • The problem is space travel is very expensive, especially the way governments do space travel.
  • Because it costs $10,000 to put a pound of anything into orbit around the planet, we need to have an infusion of public and private funds. That's where billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos come into the picture. With their help, we have new energies, new strategies, and new plans to go back into outer space.
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Videos

Watch how this video brilliantly compares planet sizes

What if all planets were the same distance from Earth as the Moon?

Yeti Dynamics
  • A video imagines what it would look like if the planets were all the same distance from Earth as the Moon.
  • The largest planets like Jupiter and Saturn would loom large in the sky.
  • Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system.
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Surprising Science

A mind-blowing explanation of the speed of light

Light exists outside of time.

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  • The only things that travel at the speed of light are photons.
  • Nothing with any mass at all can travel at the speed of light because as it gets closer and closer to the speed of light, its mass increases. And if it were actually traveling at the speed of light, it would have an infinite mass.
  • Light does not experience space or time. It's not just a speed going through something. All of the universe shifts around this constant, the speed of light. Time and space itself stop when you go that speed.
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Videos

Found in Antarctica: A 'weirdo particle' that predates the sun

A tiny grain found within a meteorite in Antarctica sheds light on how the solar system itself came to be.

NASA, ESA, H. Bond (STScI) and M. Barstow (University of Leicester)
  • Researchers cut open a small meteorite found in the LaPaz icefield in Antarctica to uncover a very surprising find.
  • Inside this meteorite was a small inclusion that they determined came directly from the nova of a white dwarf to Earth.
  • By studying the inclusion's composition, researchers were able to glean new insights into the thermodynamics of white dwarf novae, ultimately shedding light onto how solar systems like ours formed.
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Surprising Science

NASA uncovers a 19-year fraud that caused failed missions

An investigation finds the cause of failed NASA launches and $700 million in losses.

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory on the launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Image credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin
  • An Oregon company provided falsified tests to a NASA rocket builder for almost two decades.
  • The company is now liable for $46 million in payments and the lab manager went to prison.
  • NASA can't test every single component itself, making it important the supply chain is protected.
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Technology & Innovation