We now know where NASA’s first-ever robotic moon rover will touch down. The ice-hunting Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land just west of Nobile Crater, which sits near the moon’s south pole, NASA officials announced Tuesday (Sept. 20). In late 2023, VIPER will fly to the moon aboard Griffin, a lander built by … Read more
Mars was doomed to desiccation by its small size, a new study suggests. Thanks to observations by robotic explorers such as NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, scientists know that in the ancient past, liquid water coursed across the Martian surface: The Red Planet once hosted lakes, rivers and streams, and possibly even a huge ocean … Read more
As the inhabitants of an ancient Middle Eastern city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, they had no idea an unseen icy space rock was speeding toward them at about 38,000 mph (61,000 kph). Flashing through the atmosphere, the rock exploded in a massive fireball about … Read more
Welcome to the latest installment of “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration. Today: A six-year search of space beyond the orbit of Neptune has netted 461 newly discovered objects. These objects include four that are … Read more
We’re launching a brand new feature on Liminal Fiction – “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Today: Astronomers have detected a strange, repeating radio signal near the center of the Milky Way, and it’s unlike any other energy signature ever studied. According to a new paper accepted for … Read more
We’re launching a brand new feature on Liminal Fiction – “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Today: Astronomers have uncovered evidence of explosions triggered by dead stars ramming into live stars, possible proof of a new type of supernova, a new study finds. Supernovas are gigantic explosions that … Read more
China is investigating how to build ultra-large spacecraft that are up to 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) long. But how feasible is the idea, and what would be the use of such a massive spacecraft? The project is part of a wider call for research proposals from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a funding … Read more
We’re launching a brand new feature on Liminal Fiction – “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Today: Astronomers have taken the first detailed look at a mysterious Milky Way object known as “The Accident” — and discovered that it’s even more perplexing than previous studies indicated. The Accident … Read more
NASA has plunged three spacecraft into gas giants. Two of them, Galileo and Cassini, were at the ends of their missions when they met their doom in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. But the Galileo spacecraft arrived with a passenger — a probe designed to drop into a gas giant atmosphere. NASA lost … Read more
We’re launching a brand new feature on Liminal Fiction – “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Today: An enormous number of rogue supermassive black holes may be wandering around the universe, new simulations find. In fact, wandering giant black holes may account for a whopping 10% of the … Read more
