He was one of the most distinguished American astronomers of his day, but an obsession with Martians became his downfall
Professor David Peck Todd is one of the most remarkable astronomers you’ve never heard of. A distinguished professor…
Amendment 68: New Opportunity: D.8 Habitable Worlds Observatory Precursor Science Investigations
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a large-aperture ultraviolet/visible/near-infrared observatory concept recommended by the National Academies of Science,…
The Type of Orbital Data Centers That Billionaires Want to Launch Into Space Would Wreak Ecological Catastrophe, Scientists Warn
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Over…
When darkness fell during the total solar eclipse, zoo animals responded in wildly different ways
Japanese macaques had the most obvious response, as they became much less active and moved higher into branches.…
NASA Astronaut Chris Williams to Discuss Space Station Mission
NASA astronaut Chris Williams will recap his recent eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station during a news…
The Parker Solar Probe flies through the sun’s outer atmosphere behind a carbon shield eleven and a half centimetres thick, and the arrangement works so well that while the front face glows at almost fourteen hundred degrees, the instruments sitting a metre behind it stay at roughly the temperature of a comfortable living room
At its closest approaches, Parker Solar Probe passes about 6.2 million kilometres above the Sun’s visible surface. Sunlight…
The first woman to fly in space was not a test pilot or a scientist but a young textile worker, and in 1963 Valentina Tereshkova orbited the Earth alone for three days, longer than every American astronaut combined had managed by then
When you picture the people who flew the first space missions, you probably picture a certain kind of…
Trump admin exempts SpaceX’s Starlink from FCC ban on foreign-made routers
The Trump administration today exempted SpaceX’s Starlink routers from the Federal Communications Commission ban on foreign-made routers. A…
Re-Testing An Apollo Guidance Computer Module That Failed Certification Testing
After getting his hands on a rope driver module from the Apollo project era that had a big…
Rocket Lab wins $460 million contract with US military
Rocket Lab has secured a $266 million (NZ$460 million) contract with the United States military. The New Zealand-founded…
The 24-hour day is not fixed but slowly stretching, and in the dinosaurs’ time it was shorter: the Moon’s pull is gently braking Earth’s spin, so a day back then ran about 23.5 hours, and far shorter deeper in the past
The day you are living through right now is longer than any day a dinosaur ever saw. Not…
Little Red Dots Could Be Ancient Globular Clusters, Each Dominated by a Super-Massive Star
Nobody knows where the phrase “Kill two birds with one stone” originated. But the fact that it—or a…