I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen the Little Dipper—the 2003 blackout, a family trip to the Grand Canyon, a camping trip, and a stargazing drive through Wisconsin cut short by the cold. I don’t remember ever seeing the faint band of the Milky Way. Growing up in New York’s suburbs, there just aren’t…
Officially on the bucket list: Rafting down the Grand Canyon and camping out on its rocky banks under a night sky illuminated by the Milky Way.
Clouds form when warm, humid air rises into the cooler atmosphere, and all that water vapor condenses into tiny floating water droplets. But sometimes that process can be inverted, like when cold air trapped in the Grand Canyon causes it to fill with clouds as warm air passes over the massive gorge. And sometimes,…
There’s an existential beauty in the fact that everything on this Earth will eventually fall into decay; that our vibrant world is littered with the abandoned husks of past life, past ecosystems, and past civilizations. Even relics that speak to humanity’s exploitation of the natural world can take on a quiet elegance…
Dry Tortugas National Park is one of the darkest places on the east coast of the United States. So if you’re going to make a timelapse video of the night sky, that’s an ideal place to do so.
There’s nothing that makes you feel smaller than an expanse of nothing but sand and sky.
Death Valley is one of the harshest environments on the planet, but you wouldn’t know it if you happened to visit last month. As weeks of El Niño-fueled rains percolated into the soil, thousands of dormant seeds were awakened, and the barren landscape bloomed into an ocean of wildflowers.
It sometimes feels like Mars, Pluto, and planets beyond our solar system get all the attention. But let’s be real: Earth is the best goddamn planet period. And in case you’d forgotten it, this brilliant timelapse of the Mojave desert at night ought to remind you.
West Virginia is probably best known for coal mines, followed closely by pepperoni rolls. You know aspect of the state doesn’t get nearly enough attention? Its absolutely breathtaking scenery.
With gold-plated space telescopes promising to discover distant worlds and unravel the deepest mysteries of the universe, radio astronomy can sometimes feel a bit passé. But lest you think the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is no longer sexy, a glorious new photo collection featuring radio observatories…
It’s easy to remember how big the universe is when you can just stare up at the night sky and find an uncountable number of stars and see every color of the cosmos staring right back at you. But it’s not like that anymore. Now we’re surrounded by city lights of our own creation and hiding the rest of the universe…
