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NASA astronomers captured a beautiful image of Mars on May 12, when the planet was just 50 million miles away from Earth. Bright snow-capped polar regions and rolling clouds above the rusty landscape show that Mars is a dynamic, seasonal planet, not an inert rock barreling through space.
A faint, blue galaxy 30 million light years away from Earth could help us understand the conditions from the birth of the Universe. Nicknamed "The Little Lion", the galaxy contains the lowest level of heavy chemical elements ever observed in a system of stars - meaning its make-up is similar to what was happening directly after Big Bang.
When Hollywood makes a movie set in space, the science in the movie may or may not be based in reality.
If I asked you to guess where we have the best chances of finding life outside of Earth, you’d be hard pressed to think about Europa. But Jupiter’s frozen moon is beginning to look more and more attractive, and may even harbor an Earth-like ocean. We’ve written extensively before about the life harboring possibilities of […]
Hollywood screenwriters and directors are in business to make a lot of money. For space movies, they make trailers packed with explosions, laser beams and futuristic spacecraft. Heroes and heroines have perfect hair and dazzling smiles. Are these movies scientifically accurate? Usually not.
A team from Monash University, Australia, and Imperial College, U.K., found the oldest micrometeorites ever and by studying them could determine what the planet's atmosphere looked like 2.7 billion years ago when these objects impacted the surface.
Both civilian and military applications have become heavily reliant on digital communications, which in turn are dependent on space hardware like satellites. If only two decades ago, only the biggest companies or wealthy governments could afford to launch permanent or semi-permanent satellites. Today, satellites are smaller, better and cheaper than they ever were, which is why there are more than 1,100 active satellites orbiting the planet. However, they're as vulnerable as ever, too.
Hold my beer while I’m going to the Moon. In a move that could greatly benefit the space industry, as well as numerous companies, inventors and research labs, NASA just released 56 formerly patented agency technologies into the public domain, making their technology freely available and available for unrestricted commercial use. “By releasing this collection into […]
Despite its demotion from the planet status, Pluto continues to surprise us. As we receive more and more information from the Deep Horizons mission, we’re understanding more and more what a complex system Pluto really is – just like a planet. The latest example comes in the form of an unexpected interaction with the solar […]
NASA just released the first ever topographic model of Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun.
Ask most Americans which three astronauts they remember most, and the answers you’ll likely get are Neil Armstrong, John Glenn and Jim Lovell. Armstrong, of course, was the first person to walk on the moon in July of 1969. Glenn is the first American to orbit the earth in February of 1962. And Jim Lovell […]
Here's something you'd never expect to happen in a place with average temperatures of -67 degrees Fahrenheit -- Mars' flowing water is boiling!
It's a paradigm shift.
A rocky body that's neither exactly a comet nor an asteroid, may hold some interesting clues about how the planets in the solar system formed, including Earth. The tailless so-called Manx comet, named so after a breed of cats without tails, originates from the Oort cloud -- a shell of icy objects that exist in the outermost reaches of the solar system. Although it's more than a trillion miles away, this Manx comet is likely made of the same stuff that eventually coalesced to form Venus, Mars or even Earth.
All aboard the hype train!
British astronaut Tim Peake ran the London Marathon on a treadmill aboard the International Space Station.
NASA released a new set of images of Ceres - and they're a sight to behold.f
A company called Aerojet Rocketdyne has won a $67 million contract from NASA to design and develop an advanced electric propulsion system that could power complex missions to asteroids and even to Mars.
NASA astronauts have discovered a lonely planetary-like mass floating on its own, without a solar system. Imagine a galaxy, riddled with countless solar systems. Then zoom in slowly on a solar system – how do you picture it? There’s probably a star at the center, and several planets around it. That’s generally where we feel […]
There's confidence that reproducing in space is indeed possible, based on previous research. The most recent experiment made by Chinese scientists, for instance, proved that mammalian embryos can develop in microgravity.
Beam is basically a huge inflatable structure which is easy to carry and provides ample living space for astronauts once it expands. Props to SpaceX for yet another successful Dragon mission, but also to Bigelow Aerospace -- a company which might become a household name in the coming decade if their plan works: build the first space hotel!
Every picture you're likely to see of it shows planets and moons too close together prevents you from getting a feel of the size of our solar system. A group of friends plans to change that, however.
Deep radio imaging from researchers working in South Africa have revealed that supermassive black holes in a region of the distant universe are all spinning out radio jets in the same direction. The results show, for the first time, an alignment of the jets of galaxies over a large volume of space. Astronomers believe this is due […]
A Russian billionaire wants to fund the first ever interstellar probe – and he wants to do it in the span of a generation. If this comes to fruition, it will be by far the most ambitious space endeavor ever attempted by mankind. Space is incredibly vast, we all know that, but sometimes it can […]
Scientists have completed the most precise measurement of the Universe's rate of expansion to date; but the result just isn't compatible with speed calculations from remanent Big Bang radiation. Should the former results be confirmed by independent techniques, we might very well have to rewrite the laws of cosmology as we know them.
We don’t give it a lot of through, but things in space are generally round. Not the Red Rectangle though – this nebula is… well, rectangular. According to NASA, this is actually a binary star system. The stars at its center are similar to the Sun, but they are reaching the end of its lifetime […]
Astrophysicists have discovered a new class of exoplanets whose atmospheres and volatile elements have been blown away by the star they're orbiting. Their findings help cover a previously uncharted gap in planetary populations, and offers valuable insight for locating new worlds to colonize.
A team of NASA researchers has developed the first ever method for identifying and studying underground forest fungi from outer space, providing information that will help us better understand how forests will develop. Mycorrhizal fungi (underground fungus) are more similar to a city network than to individual organisms. They are complex intertwined networks that can […]
Astronomers have found a supermassive black hole in a completely unexpected area of space, a sparse area where massive galaxies are few and far between.
It always baffles me how some publish completely misleading clickbait titles.
NASA's Opportunity rover beamed back this amazing photographed showing a dust devil swirling over the Martian surface. “This is one of the best dust devils that we have seen in Meridiani Planum,” said Ray Arvidson who's Opportunity’s deputy principal investigator.
A gas giant called KELT-4Ab revolves in a stable 3-day orbit around its parent star, flanked by another two.
SpaceX will launch as early as April 8 an inflatable habitat module destined for the International Space Station.
A few years ago, the Cassini spacecraft made a surprising discovery: there are geysers erupting on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, spewing water and ice to great heights. However, the process which causes these geysers remained unknown or controversial. Now, scientists at the University of Chicago and Princeton University have pinpointed a mechanism through which Saturn’s tidal forces […]
This is the geological map of Mars. That we have a geological map of another planet, as accurate as it may be, is simply amazing to me. More info after the scroll. Mars doesn’t have any tectonic plates, but that doesn’t stop it from having a very interesting geology. Most of our current knowledge about […]
Researchers studying the Moon’s ice have found evidence that Earth’s moon wandered off its original axis roughly 3 billion years ago. This would mean that our satellite is in a select group of wanderers, alongside only few other planetary bodies. Planetary scientist Matt Siegler at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and colleagues were examining NASA data regarding lunar […]
When researchers started raising 48 bacteria species aboard the International Space Station, they weren’t really sure what to expect. They wanted to see how the microorganisms would adapt to living in microgravity, but one species hasn’t only adapted – it’s doing better than on Earth. According to a recent study, Bacillus safensis JPL-MERTA-8-2 – a strain […]
Well, technically if you're not a space pirate, you'll be prosecuted by the laws governing your home country. On the International Space Station, that's another story.
A new gravity map of Mars is offering researchers the possibility to study the geology of Mars.
Some stars go out with a bang -- a supernova explosion! Using optical images recorded by the now defunct Kepler telescope, astronomers witnessed for the very time the shockwave that follows a star's implosion once it runs out of fuel.
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.
