After decades of preparation, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images to the world in a live stream on Monday (June 23). The photos, taken by the world’s largest digital camera, are highly-detailed and show relatively large areas of the sky. In a televised news conference, scientists from the observatory revealed new details … Read more
Nowadays, the dark of night is interspersed with the light of stars. But before the stars were born, did light shine at the beginning of the universe? The short answer is “no.” But the long answer reveals light’s extraordinary journey. At first, the early universe’s light was “trapped,” and it took several hundred thousand years … Read more
People from cultures across the world have been looking at Mars since ancient times. Because it appears reddish, it has often been called the red planet. The English name for the planet comes from the Romans, who named it after their god of war because its color reminded them of blood. In reality, the reddish … Read more
New research suggests that the explosive death throes of massive stars, known as supernovas, may have had dramatic effects on our planet’s climate over its distant history. Investigating historic incidents of these events could help scientists predict similar events in the future and prepare for them. Supernovas occur when stars that are much more massive … Read more
When Apollo astronauts first set foot on the lunar surface, they expected to find grey rocks and dust. What they didn’t anticipate was discovering something that looked almost magical: tiny, brilliant orange glass beads scattered across the Moon’s landscape like microscopic gems. These beads, each smaller than a grain of sand, are actually ancient time … Read more
The concept of terraforming Mars — transforming the planet’s climate to support life as we know it — has long belonged to the realm of science fiction. But a new study argues that it’s time to take the idea seriously. “Thirty years ago, terraforming Mars wasn’t just hard — it was impossible,” said Erika DeBenedictis, … Read more
The Big Bang is often described as the explosive birth of the universe — a singular moment when space, time and matter sprang into existence. But what if this was not the beginning at all? What if our universe emerged from something else — something more familiar and radical at the same time? In a … Read more
After nearly a decade in orbit, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has, for the first time, directly observed the process that scientists had long suspected was responsible for stripping Mars of its atmosphere. The findings, published May 28 in the journal Science Advances, could help answer a longstanding question about how Mars transformed from a potentially habitable … Read more
In the last five years, the number of satellites orbiting Earth has more than doubled and will likely double again within a similar timespan, thanks to the efforts of private companies such as SpaceX. But while these spacecraft can provide important benefits, they are also causing multiple issues that are only just being realized by … Read more
Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, used to be even bigger, according to a new study. The cloud of gas and dust from which the sun and planets formed dissipated around 4.5 billion years ago. At that time, Jupiter was at least twice its current size, and its magnetic field was about 50 times stronger, … Read more
