ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

The Little Gem Nebula Shines Like A Jewel

This gorgeous filtered image is a 6,000-year-old snapshot of a slowly dying star. When the star at the center of the Little Gem Nebula reached the end of its lifespan, it began ejecting its outer layers into space in glowing clouds of gas. Its stellar wind pushes the gas outward into this colorful bubble. The … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Watch a Spectacular Meteor Shower This Week

If you’d like to wish on a shooting star, this week is a great opportunity. The Perseid meteor shower will peak on Wednesday, August 12 and Thursday, August 13. Every year, Earth’s orbit around the Sun carries it through a cloud of dusty, rocky debris left in the wake of Comet Swift-Tuttle. When those particles … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Four Galaxies Share a Destructive Dance

These are the galaxies of Hickson Compact Group 87, about 400 million light years from Earth, as seen from the mountains of Chile. Just as the planets of our solar system orbit the Sun, and all the stars in our galaxy orbit the galaxy’s center, the galaxies of groups like HCG 87 orbit a common … Continued

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Mimas and Dione Beam up at Saturn in a Stunning Portrait

The Moon may be Earth’s kid brother, but Saturn’s moons seem more gnats on an elephant in this incredible image captured by the Cassini probe. Pictured here are Saturn’s moons Mimas (right) and Dione (left) staring up at their behemoth of a planet, with the unilluminated side of the rings angled about one degree from … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Explore the Surface of Mars With NASA’s Latest Web Tools

Most of us will never set foot on Mars, but thanks to NASA’s unceasing public outreach campaign, now we can all imagine what that might be like. To commemorate the three year anniversary of the Curiosity rover’s Martian landing, NASA has unveiled two new web tools that allow you to explore the Red Planet’s surface … Continued

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There May Be Dozens of ‘Mini Moons’ Zipping Around the Earth

While Earth’s official Moonis busy photobombing us, a bunch of smaller upstarts are vying to become Moon #2. That’s right — Earth may have a rotating entourage of ‘mini moons’, and astronomers are determined to find them. “Only one is known,” Robert Jedicke said August 3 at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union, according … Continued

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Our Planet May Be Sprouting Super-Dense “Hairs” of Dark Matter

Calculations made by a JPL-California research scientist suggest that thin strands of dark matter filaments are spreading out from large planetary bodies like Earth and Jupiter. If true, it’s a possible sign that we may be able to finally detect these hypothetical forms of matter. “As the evidence of dark matter’s existence has become overwhelming, … Continued

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Earth Looks Glorious From Europe’s Newest Weather Satellite

Europe’s MSG-4 geostationary weather satellite is up and running after its launch on July 15. Earlier today, it’s Spinning Enhanced Visible Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) snapped its first image of Earth. And yes, we are impressed. Although you wouldn’t guess it from the exquisite photo, MSG-4 is still undergoing its initial commissioning and calibration phase. It … Continued

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We Found the Building Blocks of Life on a Comet

Last week, a slew of scientific papers told the story of comet lander Philae’s bumpy touchdown,comet 67P’s surprisingly fluffy surface, and — most exciting — the discovery of life’s building blocks there. We haven’t found life. But we may have found part of life’s origin story, buried on this icy rock. When scientists say they’ve … Continued

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This Unusually Dusty Comet is Spewing Mysterious Chunks of Debris

A new comet is currently making its inaugural trip to the inner Solar System from the Oort cloud where it likely originated. New images show a tremendous amount of dust streaming away from it, along with strange blobs that have attracted the attention of astronomers. The comet is currently being investigated by Johns Hopkins physicist … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Scientists Calculate From Just How Far You Can See a Candle Flame

Your eyes are good—but how good? There’s a long-standing argument about the distance from which humans can observe a burning candle, but now a pair of astronomers has calculated an answer based on the science of how we see the stars. If you ask Google this question, you might find answers that claim the eye … Continued

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Is Earth’s Closest Cousin a Dying Planet?

Last week, the human race met its very first Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star in the habitable zone. Kepler-452b’s discovery was met with resounding excitement, but the news was bittersweet. Because life on this distant world — if it exists at all — could be facing imminent extinction. Earth’s new cousin has spent the … Continued

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Let’s Talk About NASA’s Mission to Europa

The search for life in the Solar System is about the hunt for water. Wherever we find liquid water on Earth, we find life. I’m talking everywhere. In the most briny, salty pools in Antarctica, in the hottest hot springs in Yellowstone, under glaciers, and kilometers deep underground. So we go searching for liquid water … Continued

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We Actually Learned a Lot From Philae’s Botched Landing on Comet 67/P

The ESA’s attempt to land a probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko didn’t go as planned, but the mission has been far from a failure. A recent analysis of Philae’s harrowing journey across the comet has revealed some fascinating clues about its surface, while providing critical insights for future comet missions. A meticulous analysis of Philae’s first … Continued

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Watch This Brown Dwarf’s “Northern Lights” 

Brown dwarfs are not quite stars. Some aspects of them resemble planets, like the fact that they have their own versions of “northern lights,” which can be seen from very far away. One of these distant auroras has been captured in the video above One of the major benefits to living on the Earth is … Continued

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Cassini Spies “Unusual” Red Arcs on Saturn’s Icy Moon Tethys

Recently acquired images of Tethys, one of the ice moons of Saturn, have given scientists their best view yet of several “unusual, arc-shaped reddish streaks” that sweep across the satellite’s surface. Via JPL: Images taken using clear, green, infrared and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create the enhanced-color views, which highlight subtle color differences … Continued

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Beautiful New Topographical Map Of Ceres Shows a Complex, Icy World 

NASA has just released a stunning new topographic map of Ceres, the other dwarf planet astronomers are getting to study up close and personal this summer. Unlike Pluto’s freakishly smooth and youthful surface, Ceres’s exterior is riddled with craters, creating a battered old landscape of peaks and valleys. The topo maps shown here, with low … Continued

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Astronomers Discover a New Class of Freakishly Dense, Compact Galaxies

Imagine what our night sky would look like if its stellar density was a million times greater than it is now. Remarkably, such places actually exist: They’re called “Ultracompact Dwarfs,” and astronomers are calling them an entirely new kind of galaxy. Undergraduate astronomy students Michael Sandoval and Richard Vo from San José University discovered a … Continued

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What Would Happen if a Massive Comet Struck the Sun?

Humans, dark and disturbed creatures that we are, love to imagine what would happen if a massive comet struck the Earth. But what if a giant ice rock flung itself into the Sun? A team of astronomers did the math to figure out what would happen. “I give talks about these and I call them … Continued

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Fly Through The Solar System At The Speed Of Light With This Video

Space is really, really big, and there’s been a couple of great videos out there that show off the relative size of objects. This video puts the scale of the solar system into real perspective by showing how it takes you pass through the solar system at the speed of light. Light travels 299,792,458 m/s, … Continued