Boeing’s already-delayed Starliner spacecraft suffers propellant leak during engine testing
It should go without saying that building a spacecraft isn’t easy. Building one that is capable of safely carrying a crew is harder still, which …
Articles by Mike Wehner
Airbus just flew its incredibly bizarre BelugaXL for the first time, and it looks amazing
I have a bit of a thing for big, weird planes. The Super Guppy is one of my all-time favorite things ever, so when I …
NASA may have just caught a nearby star eating an entire planet
Planetary systems aren’t just born overnight. When stars form and begin pulling debris into their orbit, some of that material eventually clumps up into fledgling …
Ex-NASA engineer build’s world’s largest Super Soaker, and it’s ‘basically a bomb’
We’re right in the heart of summer, which means getting sprayed down with a water gun sounds like a pretty nice way to spend an …
The massive dust storm on Mars has completely changed how the planet looks
Remember that giant, planet-wide dust storm that sprung up on Mars in late May? Yeah, well, it’s still going on. Initially thought to be a …
Tyrannosaurus rex was a big meanie, so this newly discovered dinosaur wore plenty of armor
Living in the Cretaceous period would have been pretty darn dangerous for pretty much any animal. Dinosaurs were out in full force, and massive carnivores …
Man catches shark, shark gets eaten by an even bigger fish, man does not catch shark
Fishing in the ocean can be a pretty interesting experience, especially when you accidentally hook a shark. That’s what happened to a fisherman aboard a …
Saturn’s moon Titan looks absolutely incredible in new infrared images
NASA’s Cassini orbiter is dead. It’s been dead since late last year, having completed an extended mission and a series of daring dives through Saturn’s …
The Curiosity rover finally found a rock too hard to crack, but it tried anyway
NASA’s Curiosity rover has been doing some fantastic work on Mars, and even though it had to basically reinvent how it uses its primary sampling …
Scientists find 99-million-year-old snake trapped in an amber tomb
If you were to travel back in time about 100 million years you’d see a whole lot of things that you can’t see today. Dinosaurs …
Eating dinner earlier could lower your risk of cancer, but scientists don’t know why
You already know a number of things that can reduce your chances of getting various types of cancer. Avoiding tobacco products is a biggie, as …
Watch the International Space Station poop out a tiny satellite that will search for matter
You might think of satellites as large, imposing spacecraft that cruise through Earth’s orbit like hulking beasts, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. …
Renowned turtle scientist stripped of award after showing scantily-clad students during his presentation
Go ahead and file this in the “WTF?” news pile: Dick Vogt, a veteran scientist who studies Brazilian Turtles and is apparently good enough at …
Watch Blue Origin launch its New Shepard spacecraft live right here
This year has already been packed with rocket launches, and many of those have come from SpaceX. There’s no denying that SpaceX is leading the …
Surprise! There’s a quadrillion tons of diamonds lying beneath your feet
Finding a diamond on the ground would make anyone’s day. Depending on its quality, you might be able to sell it for a nice little …
Astronomers accidentally discover a dozen new moons around Jupiter
Astronomers oftentimes have to look very, very carefully for something that they believe exists in a certain spot in space. Whether that be an exoplanet …
Brilliant activists turned river trash into a floating park, and it’s awesome
We’ve already established that mankind has a big, big problem cleaning up after itself, but there’s at least a small percentage of humans who are …
Archaeologists find world’s oldest, stalest bread, and it predates agriculture
We take bread for granted these days but exactly when it popped up in the timeline of human advancement is still a bit of a …
NASA finds ‘spiders’ on Mars, but not the kind you’re thinking
The search for evidence of past life on Mars is a long, complicated endeavor that NASA has devoted an incredible amount of time and money …
You probably shouldn’t eat crab meat for a little while
Another day, another dire warning about food that you probably should avoid for a while. Last week the FDA and CDC told everyone to stop …
Venus photobombed the Moon last night, and everyone loved it
If you’re staring at the sky on a clear night it’s usually pretty easy to spot the Moon, but we often forget that it’s sometimes …
Jupiter’s moon Io is covered in volcanos, and astronomers may have just spotted another one
Jupiter might be the largest, most eye-catching planet in our Solar System, but the planet itself isn’t the only interesting thing in its neighborhood. Jupiter’s …
Giant ‘Plant from Hell’ sends 17-year-old to the hospital with third-degree burns
The Giant Hogweed is a terrible, no-good, dangerous plant. It also happens to be spreading across the United States with shocking speed, and just touching …
FDA says stop eating Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal as new Salmonella cases rise
Back in mid-June the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a bulletin warning consumers that Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal could potentially be contaminated with …
Full-color 3D X-rays are the future, and here’s what they look like
For all the advancements in body-scanning medical technology, X-rays still tend to be pretty boring to look at. They’re more accurate than ever, providing plenty …
Astronomers just discovered something incredible about what they thought was a run-of-the-mill asteroid
Spotting asteroids has become pretty routine for astronomers working with some of the most powerful telescopes on the planet, but every once in a while …
Iceman that lived 5,300 years ago had a high-fat feast as his final meal
The body of the now-famous “iceman” which was discovered in the early 1990s in the Alps has revealed a lot about how ancient peoples in …
Oops! NASA might have destroyed proof of life on Mars on accident decades ago
Finding proof that life once existed on Mars would be one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in the history of mankind, which is why NASA …
Watch Cape Canaveral’s iconic launch towers crumble in early-morning demolition
Cape Canaveral has always been a cherished place for the US space program, having hosting some of the most important space missions stretching back decades. …
SpaceX and Boeing are racing to put a man in space, and they’re both losing
NASA would love to stop having to rely on Russia to send its astronauts into space, but realizing that dream means that someone needs to …
