gear Push settings
Five new studies describe Pluto and its atmosphere, showing that Pluto is much more active and complex than previously thought, and still has more surprises to be discovered. Pluto’s surface exhibits a wide variety of landscapes, some significantly different from its largest moon Charon. Whether or not we agree on Pluto’s planet status, we all have […]
Astronomers have discovered a new species of galaxies in the cosmic wilderness.
Ceres is the largest body in the asteroid belt – too big to really be an asteroid, but too small to be a planet, it’s trapped in the “minor planet” classification. But Ceres might be much more interesting than other similar bodies, with its mysterious bright spots being a constant source of amazement. We’ve written […]
Close to the dwarf planet's equator liies a roughly 4,000 square miles plateau called Piri Planitia, which particularly stands out. Unlike the rest of Pluto, the plateau is pretty smooth, unmarked by the characteristic craters and jagged. Aided by New Horizons' sensitive imaging instruments, scientists now think they know what's been eating Pluto so long: sublimation at the hand of methane-rich deposits.
Swiss physicists have developed a new model to chart the early development of the Universe in better detail than ever before.
A spectacular image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) gives us a glimpse into how the Sun will look at its death.
If we want to have a permanent or long-term mission to Mars, then growing crops locally would be very useful.
When the MESSENGER spacecraft found carbon rich material on Mercury, researchers were surprised and couldn't quite explain the source. Now, they believe that the material may be the remnants of a primordial graphite crust, which would also explain why Mercury looks darker than expected.
It was a bittersweet moment for SpaceX, as the space flight company successfully launched a communications satellite to a distant orbit but failed to land the remnants safely. This wasn’t completely unexpected though, as this was more a way to test the waters for the next launch. After a bunch of frustrating delays, SpaceX successfully launched […]
Seals from colonies on the North Atlantic island of North Rona that had higher levels of the hormone oxytocin in their blood stay closer to pups. This suggests that the hormone, often called the love hormone because of its role in love and in female reproductive biological functions, is paramount to forming mother-child bond.
Researchers have documented a more familiar curiosity: what dust particles on a comet look like.
NASA and ESA astronomers have pushed the Hubble telescope more than ever before.
Astronaut Scott Kelly returned to planet Earth on Thursday, after a landing in which everything went smoothly, as expected.
Learn more about how they formed billions of year ago.
Dammit, people!
Astronaut Scott Kelly is returning home after a year in space, aboard the International Space Station. While there, Capt Scott Kelly shared spectacular images of our planet via Twitter, as well as documenting everyday life in outer space. Here are just a few of them, with the accompanying tweets:
Today is homecoming day for a record-setting crew. Three Expedition 46 crew members from the International Space Station are finishing packing the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft for the ride home today, ending their record-setting mission. In November 2012, NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and their international partners selected two veteran spacefarers for a one-year mission […]
“My intention is to build up a permanent base station on the Moon,” Jan Wörner, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), says without hesitation.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) unveiled a new bedazzling image of the Milky Way, snapped by the APEX telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Research narrowed down Planet Nine's orbit and confirmed there indeed seems to be a massive planet in the far reaches of our Solar System, "but not just anywhere".
Depending on the alignment of Mars and Earth, as well as the speed of propulsion, a spacecraft could reach the Red Planet as soon as 150 days. So far, NASA spacecraft have made 13 trips to Mars, with seven landings. The most recent -- that of the Curiosity rover -- took 253 days from launch on Earth to touchdown on Mars. There's now reason to believe, however, that this journey could be significantly made faster to the point it only takes 3 days, according to a NASA researcher.
As NASA’s New Horizons shuttle zoomed past Pluto, it snapped awesome photos not only of the “ex-planet”, but also of its moons. Now researchers are analyzing those pictures and reporting surprising finds – such as an ancient ocean on Charon, Pluto’s moon. Too big for its skin? The side of Pluto’s largest moon viewed by […]
Astronaut Scott Kelly (seen in pic) and his colleagues stationed on the International Space Station now have a new Sidekick. The project is a collaboration between NASA and Microsoft aimed to help with astronaut duties, like repairs, experiments or space walks, using an out of this world augment reality device called the HoloLens.
In what has to be one of the strangest declassifications, three Apollo astronauts on 1969’s Apollo 10 mission heard strange “music” while passing over the far side of the moon, where communication with Earth is cut off. The three astronauts onboard the mission — John Young, Eugence Cernan, and Thomas Stafford — were practicing the separation and […]
The Sun is easily the most recognizable and important star that humanity has ever known. And yet, those who want to study it come face to face with a tiny weensy problem -- it tends to burn your retinas if you look at it.
While 3-D scanning the Columbia command module used by the Apollo 11 astronauts to splash down back on Earth, researchers found some amazing artifacts: graffiti markings.
Part of NASA JPL's Exoplanet Travel Bureau series, these 14 posters show such locales as Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, Saturn's vapor-spewing moon Enceladus, and the dwarf planet Ceres. They're all available for free in massive resolution (PDF and TIFF format), so you can download, print and hang in your living room. Enjoy!
Russian scientists have found a way to use the country’s surplus of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to protect themselves from another threat: falling meteorites and asteroids. I’m happy to see that more and more people are starting to look at ways to protect Earth in the case of an incoming asteroid. In January, NASA announced the […]
In one scenario, parts would spiral farther than the moon!
One of Saturn's ring, which is very opaque and bright seems to have played an optical illusions all along. It is in fact much lighter than previously though -- as little as a seventh of the mass it appears to have.
New data provided by the New Horizons mission showed that water ice on Pluto is much more common than we thought.
It may be possible to observe the presence of an advanced alien civilization by the effects produced if that civilization were to self-destruct through nuclear war, biological warfare, nanotechnological annihilation, or stellar pollution. Each case would generate unique detectable signs that could be identified by earth-based telescopes.
China’s National Space Administration released a trove of images from their lunar rover and they’re spectacular. We’re talking hundreds of tantalizing, HD and never-before-seen images of the Moon! You can set up an account on China’s Science and Application Center for Moon and Deepspace Exploration website and have a look for yourself, view and download all the […]
Europe's laser communication network has taken off!
Researchers at European Space Agency (ESA) collected fungi that live in one of the harshest places on Earth -- McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica -- then shipped some to the ISS. Here, populations were subjected to both a Martian environment and directly exposed to space. In both situations, fungi survived after 18 months though those breeding in the Martian environment proved to be far better adapted. Lichen were also tested under the same circumstances. These too survived, which gives hope that there might be a chance for life on Mars to exist.
Considering how inhospitable Mars is, given there's no air, -55C temperatures, radiation and all, you might think the quality of sleep on Mars is our last concern. A new study suggests that a permanent jet lag on Mars might come with some serious health risks, so maybe we should take this more seriously.
Astronomers find the parent of an orphan planet. The finding makes the solar system the biggest in the galaxy.
NASA is very close to reaching a milestone in the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Hubble's successor that will be launched in 2018.
An altered periodic table that shows how each elements was forged.
Where are all the aliens? Why haven’t we seen or heard their signals from space? Could we really have been the only planet where life evolved?
This bright orange zinnia was grown in the Vegetable Production System (also known as the gloriously puny "Veggie"), a deployable unit built to sustain a range of crops including lettuce -- the first space-grown crop that the ISS taste-tested in August.
A duo of astronomers from CalTech may have found another planet, far away in our solar system.
Japanese astronomers may have discovered an intermediate black hole close to the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. This finding could help explain how supermassive black holes form at the center of galaxies. Most galaxies we know of have a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at their center. The name is pretty self explanatory – […]
There's a now a third private space entity that's been screened and granted permission to ferry cargo to and fro the International Space Station. Joining SpaceX and Orbital will be the Sierra Nevada Corp. which plans to use a reusable winged craft that looks like a mini-shuttle. The design allows for a soft landing on a runway, instead of dropping the ocean, that might prove more effective for retrieving sensitive scientific instruments.
Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program that wants to get up-close and personal with several planets in our solar system. The shuttle itself is going towards Jupiter to study its gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. Juno will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the […]
For the first time in history, astronomers have solid clues of water ice on a comet, confirming what many theories already claimed.
The star was observed for the first time in June, but it's still radiating massive amounts of energy, making it shine 570 billion times stronger than our Sun.
You can't be an advanced civilization until you have a planetary defense office - and it sounds incredibly awesome no matter how you look at it.
Apollo 11: Eagle Has Landed NASA’s mission to better understand the Universe around us resulted not only in text, images and video, but also in a huge number of sounds. The space agency posted rocket sounds, the chirps of satellites and equipment, lightning on Jupiter, interstellar plasma and radio emissions and of course, famous vocal clips […]
The New Horizons shuttle has finished its Pluto flyby months ago, but NASA is continuing to receive breathtaking photos from it. The latest additions paint a ‘lava lamp’ surface on Pluto’s surface, likely a sea of nitrogen close to Pluto’s Sputnik Planum. Astronomers knew that Sputnik Planum was an icy plain, irregular and segmented by […]
