When the great minds of science gathered at the U.S. National Museum (now known as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History) on April 26, 1920, the universe was at stake. Or at least the size of it, anyway. In
The super-active sunspot responsible for unleashing the three most powerful solar flares of 2013 within a 24-hour stretch this week is slowly rotating towardEarth and will likely be facing our planet by the weekend, experts say. Active Region 1748, as the sunspot is known, unleashed three
Four images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory of an X3.2-class flare from late at night on May 13, 2013. Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, the images show the flare in four different wavelengths. (Image: NASA/SDO) Last night
One breakthrough to come in recent years is direct imaging of exoplanets. Ground-based telescopes have begun taking infrared pictures of the planets posing near their stars in family portraits. But to astronomers, a picture is worth even more than a
Scientists investigating the source of the moon’s internal water have lifted telltale fingerprints from Apollo-era lunar rocks showing that the water may have originated from meteorites bombarding Earth. The surprisingly “wet” volcanic rock, described online Thursday in the journal Science,
A teensy skeleton with a squashed alienlike head may have earthly origins, but the remains, found in the Atacama Desert a decade ago, do make for quite amedical mystery. Apparently when the mummified specimen was discovered, some had suggested the possibility it
I recently receive the following e-mail question: Got a question for you: do you consider the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence to be science or pseudoscience? I recently got into an online debate and found myself in the minority because I
This weekend, stargazers should dust-off their telescopes and catch a glimpse of Saturn at its best and brightest. On Sunday, April 28th, Saturn will be making its closest approach to Earth, appearing bigger and brighter than at any other time
Unless space debris is actively tackled, some satellite orbits will become extremely hazardous over the next 200 years, a new study suggests. The research found that catastrophic collisions would likely occur every five to nine years at the altitudes used
There once were two planets, new to the galaxy and inexperienced in life. Like fraternal twins, they were born at the same time, about four and a half billion years ago, and took roughly the same shape. Both were blistered
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the “habitable zone,” the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. The
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery The Universe has
NASA’s fiscal 2014 budget request will include $100 million for a new mission to find a small asteroid, capture it with a robotic spacecraft and bring it into range of human explorers somewhere in the vicinity of the Moon. Suggested
Technically, Pink Floyd had it wrong. The space-facing side of the moon isn’t dark (except at full moon when the Earth is between the sun and the moon). Not that you’d know that, given we always see the same side
The more we learn about the formation and evolution of our solar system, the more we realise it was far from a sedate, gentle process. Everywhere we look we find evidence the final stages of planetary formation were punctuated by
I’ve been asked on a number of occasions recently why the moon always seems to show us the same face — the lunar nearside. I’m not sure why there’s the sudden interest, but it’s a very good and valid question,
Last year, in an effort to tackle the myths surrounding the belief that the world would end on December 21st, Nasa set up a website to debunk theories about ‘Mayan Prophecies’, and even released a video explaining why Armageddon was
It is the furthest man-made object in space. It has travelled more than 11 billion miles since it was launched nearly 36 years ago. And now Voyager 1 has boldly gone where no spacecraft has gone before – it has
