Space Exploration

Milky Way’s Central Black Hole Confirms Einstein Was Right, Yet Again You have to be pretty smart for your name to become synonymous with intelligence. So, it’s not exactly shocking that many of Albert Einstein’s theories have been supported by observable evidence. Chalk up another posthumous win for Einstein — …

Stunningly Earth-Like Planet Found Hiding in Kepler Telescope Data Most of the exoplanets discovered by Kepler, TESS, and other initiatives are much larger than Earth. Bigger planets are much easier to spot with our current technology, but scientists suspect there are a lot of Earth-like planets out there, too. Astronomers …

Study: Long-Duration Spaceflight Affects Brain Volume A new study led by Professor Larry Kramer from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston suggests that the impact of microgravity is far-reaching, potentially causing brain volume changes and pituitary gland deformation. Reconstructed sagittal 5-mm orthogonal midline images in the brain …

Was Interstellar Visitor ‘Oumuamua Torn Apart by a Star? You might remember ‘Oumuamua, the very first interstellar visitor astronomers ever detected in our solar system. This object is almost certainly not an alien spaceship, but it does have an extremely bizarre elongated shape. Now, researchers from the Chinese Academy of …

The Formation of the Moon May Have Stretched the Earth Into a Potato The question of how the Moon formed has fascinated astronomers and geologists for decades. Currently, the prevailing theory is that the Earth was struck by an approximately Mars-sized impactor very early in its life. This impact catastrophically …

Mercury-Bound Satellite Slingshots Around Earth Today (VIDEO) It’s been a few years since we’ve talked about BepiColombo, the joint ESA / JAXA spacecraft headed for Mercury. When last we checked in with the probe, scientists were testing its ion drive. BepiColombo features the most powerful ion engine ever built. On …

Researchers Spot Ozone Mini-Hole over Arctic Researchers Spot Ozone Mini-Hole over ArcticUsing data from the Tropomi instrument on ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite (also known as Sentinel-5P), a team of scientists from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has noticed a strong reduction of ozone concentrations over the Arctic. DLR researchers …

Pole-to-Pole Map of Saturn’s Thermosphere Reveals Likely Reason Why It’s So Hot A team of planetary researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom has created a 2D map of densities and temperatures in Saturn’s thermosphere (upper atmosphere). Composite of a true color image of Saturn, observed by Cassini …

Boeing Will Refly the Uncrewed Starliner Mission After December Failure Boeing has decided to take a mulligan and will launch a second uncrewed Starliner demo mission after the first one ended in failure. In its first flight late last year, the Starliner made it into orbit, but it was the …

NASA Brings Back Iconic ‘Worm’ Logo for First Crewed SpaceX Launch The NASA logo of today is very similar to the agency’s original insignia, but the iconic “worm” logotype adorned spacecraft for more than 15 years a few decades ago. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced on Twitter that “the worm …