Check out the insane heat shield NASA just installed on the Parker Solar Probe
The Parker Solar Probe is going to get close to the Sun than any spacecraft mankind has ever launched into space. It’s going to study …
Science
An ambitious plan to bring Mars samples back to Earth has been set into motion
We’ve learned an incredible amount of information about Mars in the past two decades, and much of it is thanks to the small fleet of …
Terrifying new wasp species wears a massive, sword-like stinger on its butt
Wasps suck. Unlike many common species of bees, wasps (which are NOT bees) are often openly hostile, and sometimes they seem to pick a fight …
A pride of lions brutally killed a bunch of poachers and I’m struggling to feel sad
Despite all the very clear evidence that illegal hunting is pushing many species into extinction, animals like rhinos are still being taken down by low-life …
Elon Musk wants to help trapped Thai soccer team, will send engineers to aid in cave rescue effort
Elon Musk has a lot of resources at his disposal, and not just in terms of raw purchasing power. Through his various companies he’s amassed …
Scientists just discovered that spiders can fly using electricity, spawning fresh nightmare fuel
Some animals were born to fly, but most were not. Humans have no business in the air but we’ve come up with a number of …
Johns Hopkins evacuated after staff accidentally drops deadly tuberculosis sample
Scientists studying the world’s deadliest diseases got more than they bargained for yesterday when a sample of tuberculosis was accidentally dropped in a closed sky …
Against all odds, NASA may have actually found a meteorite on the bottom of the ocean
Three days ago, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration teamed up with NASA in the hopes of finding leftover chunks of a meteorite …
Incredibly rude nearby star system is firing particles at Earth like a ‘cosmic ray gun’
Our Sun is obviously the most intense place in our Solar System, but it’s actually pretty chill when compared to many other systems. Eta Carinae, …
Man, space is huge
Size is relative. A carpenter ant is huge compared to a regular ant, but it’s still tiny when compared to, say, your foot. The challenge …
NASA is about to test ‘quiet’ sonic booms over Texas
Humans have already mastered the art of going really really fast in the sky, and modern technology has made topping the speed of sound a …
Outer space has way better fireworks than we ever will
Well, it’s the Fourth of July, which means sunburns, cookouts, and lots of questionable fuses being lit from coast to coast. But whether you’ll be …
Happy Fourth of July from the International Space Station!
The International Space Station is, as its name implies, a common ground for astronauts from many different countries, but that doesn’t stop them from having …
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft just got closer to dwarf planet Ceres than ever before, and here’s what it looks like
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is one that we don’t hear from very often these days, mainly because it spent seven years on its way to dwarf …
NASA’s latest photo of Jupiter is pretty enough to be your desktop wallpaper
Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System by a pretty wide margin, and while it’s not exactly the most welcoming to human visitors, …
Hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our Solar System were born from a few now-dead planets
It’s tempting to imagine that the asteroids that litter our Solar System have been there from the start, circling the Sun for ages while the …
A massive object devastated Uranus a long time ago and it never fully recovered
Our Solar System is a pretty calm place these days, all things considered, but that wasn’t always the case. In the period when the planets …
NASA’s Opportunity rover has been sitting silently in the dark Martian dust storm for three weeks
When you get caught in a storm here on Earth you just find shelter for a little while and let it pass, but things are …
Watch live as NASA scientists hunt for meteorites in the Pacific Ocean
NASA loves looking for cool stuff in space, but every once in a while something from space ends up here on Earth. That was the …
Hawaii’s proposed sunscreen ban is expected to become law this week
Hawaii is known for its seemingly endless expanse of sunny beaches, so it’s obviously not the kind of place you’d want to find yourself without …
Feast your eyes on the very first image ever captured of a planet being born
Planet formation isn’t exactly the kind of thing that happens in the blink of an eye. New worlds form over extremely long stretches of time, …
Robots are coming for the stuntmen’s jobs next
It’s already a lame joke/terrifyingly possible dystopia that robots will have taken all our jobs by 2040, but we often assume that a handful of …
New study says outer space is full of gross, toxic goop barfed out of stars
When you peer through a telescope into the night sky you’ll see plenty of neat things, including lots and lots of very distant stars, but …
ESA’s slightly creepy AI assistant is headed to the International Space Station and definitely won’t kill everyone
Science fiction movies have taught us that mixing AI with space travel rarely works out well. From HAL 9000 to Mother, something always seems to …
Scientists just changed their mind about that ‘Alien Probe’ asteroid again
The bizarre interstellar visitor that whizzed through our Solar System late last year stunned scientists the world over. The object, named Oumuamua snuck up out …
The possibility of alien life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus just got much more realistic
Scientists continue to peer deeper into the galaxy in the search for exoplanets that may host alien life, but our best chance of finding extraterrestrial …
North America is going to totally miss out on the longest lunar eclipse of the century
North America, and more specifically the United States, got treated to a spectacular total solar eclipse in 2017, but the entire northern half of the …
Japan’s asteroid probe just arrived at a massive space rock, and now it gets to blow stuff up
Back in 2014, Japan’s space program JAXA launched an asteroid probe that had a long journey ahead of it. The spacecraft, called Hayabusa 2, spent …
A bunch of stupid human errors have delayed NASA’s new space telescope yet again, this time to 2021
The James Webb Space Telescope is easily the most-anticipated new piece of hardware in NASA’s arsenal. The telescope is incredibly powerful and will give scientists …
NASA is about to give an update on the troubled development of the James Webb telescope, and you can listen to it live
NASA’s most powerful observational tool currently in development is the James Webb Space Telescope. It’s the heir apparent to the Hubble Space Telescope, and although …
