Space & Spaceflight

Here’s What We Just Learned About Pluto

At a NASA briefing this afternoon, Alan Stern, New Horizon’s principal investigator, answered questions from the media and the public on today’s historic flyby, discussing the team’s latest impressions of Pluto’s surface, how the data is being transmitted back to Earth, and much, much more! Here are all the key answers we got. How fast…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

What Would You Hear on the Radio If You Were Light Years From Earth?

Radio waves hurtle from Earth out into the Universe. That means the older a broadcast is, the farther it’s traveled into the final frontier. Now, a group of developers has built an eye-popping simulator that shows how many light years our music has traveled — and what you’d hear if you were billions of miles…

Space & Spaceflight Bryan Lufkin

This is the Soundtrack of a Martian Marathon

The first Martian marathon was no easy trek: the Opportunity rover had to struggle through smooth, soft sand and clamber over sharp rocks. This is the sounds of the terrain it covered in its 11-year journey exploring the red planet. In July 2014, the Mars Opportunity rover broke the off-world driving marathon. In March 2015,…

Space & Spaceflight Mika McKinnon

Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Makes More Sense for Mars than California

Ever wanted to ride to work in a screaming roller-coaster gun? If your answer was yes: good news! Elon Musk – of SpaceX and Tesla Motors fame – recently proposed the “Hyperloop,” a high-speed floating train that’s accelerated by magnets and coasts between destinations. Hailed as the train of the future, the concept is indeed…

Space & Spaceflight Leon Vanstone

Fly Through the Largest Ever Map of Our Galaxy’s Cosmic Dust

A team of astronomers has created the largest ever three-dimensional map of our galaxy’s cosmic dust—and you can fly right through it. The researchers, from Harvard University, have mapped out the distribution of space dust across three quarters of the night sky. They did that using data about 800 million stars taken with the Pan-STARRS…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

Join io9 on Tuesday to Watch the New Horizons Pluto Flyby LIVE!

Are you ready for the New Horizons Pluto flyby? io9 is hosting live blogs to celebrate the probe’s closest approach starting at 7:30am ET/4:30am PT on Tuesday morning. We’ll be back at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT on Tuesday night to wait with baited breath for New Horizon’s first call home to Earth after the flyby. Outside…

Space & Spaceflight Mika McKinnon

Pluto Is Bigger Than We Thought

Pluto, our solar system’s lovably puny outlier and everyone’s favorite demoted planet, is less puny than scientists predicted. NASA’s nuclear-powered New Horizons probe traveled over 3 billion miles in a decade to bring us this new info. Apparently, Pluto’s diameter is closer to around 1,473 miles (2,370 km), which is about 50 miles (80 km)…

Space & Spaceflight Bryan Lufkin

This Scale Model of the Solar System Will Make You Feel So Tiny

The Solar System is huge, man. You know this already, but this interactive illustration puts that giantness into the familiar terms of pixels. Prepare to feel like a small weak human. This “tediously accurate scale model of the Solar System” by designer Josh Worth pretends the moon is the size of a pixel and extrapolates…

Space & Spaceflight Mario Aguilar

The Curiosity Rover Is Helping NASA Study the Far Side of the Sun

As Curiosity works its way up Mount Sharp on Mars, studying rock and soil samples, it’s also helping scientists observe sunspots on the far side of the Sun. From its vantage point on Mars, Curiosity currently has a good view of the side of the Sun that’s pointed away from Earth, and its mast camera…

Space & Spaceflight Kiona Smith-Strickland

This Distant Spiral Galaxy Looks Very Familiar

This is what observers in a distant galaxy would see if they could look at the Milky Way through a powerful space telescope. It’s LEDA 89996, a spiral galaxy very similar to the Milky Way, and the Hubble Space Telescope captured this detailed image from its orbit around the Earth. From Earth, we can see…

Space & Spaceflight Kiona Smith-Strickland

Fly Along with New Horizons in this NASA App

The New Horizons spacecraft will start the busiest phase of its flight tomorrow as it makes its closest approach to Pluto, and you can watch from home with NASA’s Eyes on Pluto app. Eyes on Pluto is a module within NASA’s Eyes visualization program, which lets you explore space through simulations built with real NASA…

Space & Spaceflight Kiona Smith-Strickland

Pluto’s Mysterious Dark Splotches Come Into Focus

At this point, it’s safe to say that we’re going to be receiving a new ‘highest resolution image ever’ of Pluto on a close to 24 hour basis. Yesterday, we got our first peek at geologic features on the dwarf planet’s surface. And today, New Horizons beamed back the best image to date of four…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

How Did We Get to Pluto So Fast?

On July 14th, the New Horizons spacecraft will make history when it sails past Pluto, formerly known as the ninth planet. Even more incredible is how fast we got there. The spacecraft traveled 3 billion miles in nine and a half years. That’s about a million miles a day for almost ten years. How the…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

Rare Shot of Venus Crossing the Sun May Help Us Find Alien Life

The image you’re looking at is a rare and beautiful event. Every 115 years, Venus crosses our Sun in Earth’s line of sight—twice. And when the most recent crossing took place, scientists used the event to take a peek at Venus’s atmosphere, refining tools that’ll one day help astronomers search distant worlds for signs of…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

The Supermassive Black Hole That’s Growing Impossibly Fast

“Here be dragons” was a phrase once used on ancient maps, often accompanied by mythical sketches, to highlight an unexplored or potentially dangerous area. Astronomers might want to borrow this warning to label the centre of galaxies, which contain supermassive black holes. There’s a lot we don’t know about these monsters – and scientists have…

Space & Spaceflight Kevin Pimbblet

Modular Chameleon Satellite Can Transform to Change Missions

Once you’ve put a satellite into space, that’s normally kind if it. There’s not usually a lot of replanning once your technology is in orbit, meaning that if you want to change something like the broadcast frequency, you’re stuck. That’s the reason these transforming satellites exist. The Quantum programme is a European space project to…

Space & Spaceflight Chris Mills

Three Telescopes Worked to Create This One Amazing Image of the Sun

Thanks to the Solar Dynamics Observatory, humanity keeps a 24/7 unceasing watch on our friendly neighbourhood star. But to get a better appreciation of what’s going on on the Sun’s surface, SDO has to rope in some friends. The image above is a composite from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), Japan’s Hinode spacecraft, and…

Space & Spaceflight Chris Mills

For the First Time an AI Machine Identified Galaxies All on Its Own

Researchers in the UK have developed a computer that can scan outer space and classify galaxy types on its own, without any human help. This image recognition AI could help develop robots that can “see” better on their own, possibly helping doctors spot tumors or airport security spot firearms. For example, in the image above,…

Space & Spaceflight Bryan Lufkin

7 Innovative Concepts are Getting Closer to Reality Thanks to NASA

NASA just funded research into releasing robot-swarms during flybys, improving life support system, laser-mapping lunar lava caves, exploring the hydrocarbon seas of Titan, converting torpedo power supplies for deep space, creating an oasis of perpetual sunshine on the moon, and characterizing electric sails. Awesome. NASA pushes boundaries between science fiction and science fact with the…

Space & Spaceflight Mika McKinnon

New Zealand Is Joining the Private Space Race

It might be more famous for its sheep than its spacecraft, but New Zealand is about to join the private space race. A compnay called Rocket Lab is to build a new facility near Christchurch which will launch a payload into orbit before the year is out. While Rocket Lab is now based in the…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

Here’s What We Just Learned About Pluto

What Would You Hear on the Radio If You Were Light Years From Earth?

This is the Soundtrack of a Martian Marathon

Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Makes More Sense for Mars than California

Fly Through the Largest Ever Map of Our Galaxy’s Cosmic Dust

Join io9 on Tuesday to Watch the New Horizons Pluto Flyby LIVE!

Pluto Is Bigger Than We Thought

This Scale Model of the Solar System Will Make You Feel So Tiny

The Curiosity Rover Is Helping NASA Study the Far Side of the Sun

This Distant Spiral Galaxy Looks Very Familiar

Fly Along with New Horizons in this NASA App

Pluto’s Mysterious Dark Splotches Come Into Focus

How Did We Get to Pluto So Fast?

Rare Shot of Venus Crossing the Sun May Help Us Find Alien Life

The Supermassive Black Hole That’s Growing Impossibly Fast

Modular Chameleon Satellite Can Transform to Change Missions

Three Telescopes Worked to Create This One Amazing Image of the Sun

For the First Time an AI Machine Identified Galaxies All on Its Own

7 Innovative Concepts are Getting Closer to Reality Thanks to NASA

New Zealand Is Joining the Private Space Race

Do ‘Disclosure Day’ Prep With a Spielberg Sci-Fi Marathon

How to Watch the F1 Japanese GP 2026 on a Free Channel

Ranking 2016’s Superhero Debuts, 10 Years Later

Fourth Most Populous Country in the World Bans Most Social Media for Kids

How to watch UFC Fight Night Adesanya vs Pyfer live this Saturday

‘Steel Ball Run’ Will Return This Year…Eventually

‘The Mummy 4’ Is Getting the Family Back Together

JD Vance Says UFOs Are Actually Demons

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

Let us help find what you are looking for...