Science

Scientists have incredibly powerful telescopes at their disposal today like Hubble and the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Even more powerful instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope and Extremely Large Telescope are coming down the pike. However, observations will only get you so far. To understand how the universe …

Astronauts scrambled last week to find and patch a small hole in the International Space Station (ISS) that threatened to leak the station’s atmosphere into space. The crew eventually discovered a tiny puncture in the Russian Soyuz capsule docked to the station. The hole was first identified as a micrometeoroid …

There was no doubt Pluto was a planet back when Clyde Tombaugh spotted it in 1930, but scientists rethought that after learning more about the solar system. In 2006, a new definition of what makes a plane from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) saw Pluto demoted to dwarf planet status. …

The dust storm on Mars is over, but Opportunity has yet to wake back up. Earlier this summer, the rover was forced into hibernation mode by an extreme Martian dust storm that darkened the skies of the Red Planet to a level we’ve literally never seen before. Most of the …

By all rights, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft should have stopped working long ago. The observatory launched in 2009 with the aim of finding out how common exoplanets are throughout the universe. It turns out: very common. Mechanical failures forced NASA to change Kepler’s mission profile, but it still kept working until …

The belief that the Earth is really flat and that a shadowy world government techniques the public into thinking in a globe-shaped planet has been increasing in current times. Anybody would state that there suffices proof that the Earth is spherical. And versus all logic, there are more individuals who …

There’s substantial evidence that Earth’s ice caps are shrinking, but we often lack the instruments to track the changes in detail. NASA launched a satellite in 2003 to measure surface ice, but that mission ended in 2010. In September, NASA will launch a follow-up satellite called the Ice, Cloud, and …

After nearly two decades of design and testing, the European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully launched the Aeolus satellite. Aboard the satellite is a laser that will measure wind speeds across the globe. Aeolus could vastly increase the data scientists have on wind speeds, improving weather forecasting and providing new …

The ethereal green glow of the northern lights is a well-understood phenomenon, but that doesn’t make it any less lovely. A different atmospheric light show is still puzzling scientists. It is currently known as the Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement or STEVE for short. Amateur photographers have caught hints of …

The ghostly remains of long-dead black holes from another universe may be lurking in the depths of our own space-time continuum. That’s the conclusion of a new study from a group of scientists that include notes Hawking collaborator Roger Penrose. The researchers surveyed the cosmic background radiation, identifying spots that …