Astronomy

A Giant Comet Was Just Obliterated by the Sun

Reminding us of our own fragile mortality, a large, bright comet just streaked across the sky and straight into our nearest neighboring star. You will absolutely believe what happened next because it has happened to you in a nightmare, admit it. On August 3rd and 4th, the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

The So-Called Alien Megastructure Just Got Even More Mysterious

Last fall, a little-known star called KIC 8462852 became our planetary obsession when astronomers said that its erratic flickering could be the result of an alien megastructure. Further observation of Tabby’s Star yielded no signs of aliens, but the sudden dips in luminosity continue to defy explanation. Now, things just got a bit weirder. In…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

The Horrifying Way You Might Escape a Black Hole

Black holes: crushing vortexes of darkness that promise to shred each and every atom in your body to oblivion, right? Maybe not. New theoretical work by researchers at the Institute of Corpuscular Physics hints that it might be possible to escape the journey into a black hole with all of your cells intact. The bad…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

There’s Growing Evidence That Venus Was Once Habitable

If you could hop in a time-traveling spacecraft, go back three billion years and land any place in our solar system, where would you want to end up? Earth, with its barren continents and unbreathable atmosphere? Or Mars, a chillier version its big brother? Wait, what about Venus? Venus has a rep for being a…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

Io’s Atmosphere Just Collapsed

Reason number 9,000 not to colonize Jupiter’s moon Io: not only is it a frigid hellscape covered in eruptive ice volcanoes and lashed by the gas giant’s powerful radiation belts, but the atmosphere just collapsed. In fact, it collapses all the time, according to observations by astronomers at the Southwest Research Institute that are published…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

Astronomers Have Discovered the Most Desolate Place in the Milky Way

An international team of astronomers has discovered a huge expanse of space near the center of the Milky Way that’s devoid of young stars. This stellar desert extends for 8,000 light-years from the galactic core—and it hasn’t produced new stars for hundreds of millions of years. In a new paper published in the Monthly Notices…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

The Year’s Best Astronomy Photos Will Take You to Another Dimension

The Royal Observatory in Greenwich has announced its shortlist for the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. From nebulas and auroras through to starbursts and solar eclipses, these photographs will rekindle your sense of wonder. This year’s competition was the biggest yet. Judges from the ROG had to pore through 4,500 entries submitted by…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

The Terrifying Reason This Star Flickers Every Two Minutes

Some 380 light years away in the constellation Scorpius lies a star that has puzzled astronomers for over 40 years. Called AR Scorpii, the star flashes brightly and fades again every couple minutes, like a lightbulb on a dimmer switch. Now, astronomers have identified the cause of the flickering, and it’s a reminder that the…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

There’s An Enormous Blob of Gas Spinning Around Our Galaxy

Here’s some knowledge that’ll make you feel like a microbe: Our Milky Way galaxy, a collection of hundreds of billions of stars and worlds, is but a tiny nucleus buried deep inside an enormous blob of million-degree gas that’s spinning at a rip-roaring 400,000 miles per hour. Astronomers have known for some time that our…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

Something Is Erasing the Craters on Ceres

Ceres, the tiny asteroid belt world we’ve come to know and love through NASA’s Dawn mission, seems to delight in mysteries, from flickering bright spots to unexpected ocean minerals. Now, astronomers have discovered yet another puzzle while examining images of Ceres’ surface. Something has been erasing its craters. Craters offer a window into a planet’s…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

This is Where the Rosetta Spacecraft Is Going to Die

Seventy-one days from now, the Rosetta spacecraft will end its historic mission by crashing onto the surface of its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Mission planners have now selected the spacecraft’s final, mission-ending destination—and it’s a good one. As announced by the ESA earlier today, Rosetta will make its controlled impact on an area known as Ma’at,…

Tech News George Dvorsky

Epic Timelapse Captures an Entire Year on Earth From a Million Miles Away

A spacecraft parked in orbit at a distance of one million miles has captured the mother of all timelapse videos—an entire year on Earth. Enjoy. The EPIC camera aboard NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite has now recorded a full year of life on Earth from its position at Lagrange point 1, a sweet orbital spot a million…

Sploid George Dvorsky

Clouds Reveal Features on the Surface of Venus

Venus’s unusually thick atmosphere is typically regarded as a barrier that prevents us from gazing upon its tortured surface. By studying subtle shifts in weather patterns, however, scientists have learned that these clouds also offer important clues as to what lies beneath. New research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows there’s another way…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

Hundreds of New Galaxies Detected in First Image From Super Telescope

The MeerKAT radio telescope isn’t even finished being built, but it’s already released its first image: a small patch of sky showcasing 1,300 galaxies. In comparison, only 70 galaxies were known to exist in this part of the sky, which covers less than 0.01 percent of the entire celestial sphere. The telescope in South Africa…

Physics & Chemistry Carli Velocci

New 3D Map of the Universe Features a Whopping 1.2 Million Galaxies

The astronomical map you see here doesn’t depict stars, it shows galaxies—1.2 million of them, to be exact, a new record for astronomers. This extraordinary new 3D scan of the universe provides yet more evidence that a mysterious substance known as dark energy is likely causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. The…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Has Captured Its First Photo Since Arriving at Jupiter

This image taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft is one of the first to be taken by the probe since it entered Jupiter’s orbit last week. It’s not the most spectacular image we’ve seen of Jupiter and its moons, but it’s a positive sign that the spacecraft’s visible light camera, the JunoCam, is operational and capable…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

This Is the Deepest View Yet Into the Orion Nebula

Astronomers working with the Very Large Telescope in Chile have captured the deepest view yet of the heart of the Orion Nebula. Wow. Located 1,350 light-years from the sun, the Orion Nebula star-formation measures about 24 light-years across. It’s visible to the naked eye, appearing as a fuzzy patch in Orion’s sword. Like other nebulae,…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

Ancient Cosmic Explosions May Have Impacted Evolution

Millions of years ago, a pair of exploding stars showered our planet with radioactive fallout. Had those supernovae popped off a bit closer to home, Earth’s biosphere would have been toast. But even at a distance of 300 light years, the stellar events might have had an impact on the evolution of life here. The…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

There’s a New Dwarf Planet Far Beyond Pluto’s Orbit

Say hello to 2015 RR245, a 440-mile-wide dwarf planet located approximately 7.5 billion miles from the sun. It takes 700 years to make a complete orbit, making it one of the most remote known objects in the entire solar system of significant size. The newly discovered dwarf planet was discovered by an international team of…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

This Planet With Three Suns Shouldn’t Even Exist

Three hundred and twenty light years away in the Centaurus constellation sits one of the strangest planets humans have ever laid eyes on. It’s four times as massive as Jupiter and orbits twice as far out as Pluto—around one of its three suns. Using a new instrument at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope,…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone

A Giant Comet Was Just Obliterated by the Sun

The So-Called Alien Megastructure Just Got Even More Mysterious

The Horrifying Way You Might Escape a Black Hole

There’s Growing Evidence That Venus Was Once Habitable

Io’s Atmosphere Just Collapsed

Astronomers Have Discovered the Most Desolate Place in the Milky Way

The Year’s Best Astronomy Photos Will Take You to Another Dimension

The Terrifying Reason This Star Flickers Every Two Minutes

There’s An Enormous Blob of Gas Spinning Around Our Galaxy

Something Is Erasing the Craters on Ceres

This is Where the Rosetta Spacecraft Is Going to Die

Epic Timelapse Captures an Entire Year on Earth From a Million Miles Away

Clouds Reveal Features on the Surface of Venus

Hundreds of New Galaxies Detected in First Image From Super Telescope

New 3D Map of the Universe Features a Whopping 1.2 Million Galaxies

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Has Captured Its First Photo Since Arriving at Jupiter

This Is the Deepest View Yet Into the Orion Nebula

Ancient Cosmic Explosions May Have Impacted Evolution

There’s a New Dwarf Planet Far Beyond Pluto’s Orbit

This Planet With Three Suns Shouldn’t Even Exist

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