space (Page 11)

Latest in space

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine believes that thermal nuclear propulsion technology would be a game-changer for space exploration.

Head of NASA: Nuclear Propulsion Could Be “Game-Changer”

By Dan Robitzski

Newly-released photos on the surface of the asteroid Ryugu reveal rocks that appear similar to ancient meteorites that crash-landed on Earth.

Science & Energy

Rocks on a Distant Asteroid Resemble Those on Earth

By Dan Robitzski

Using steam-filled balloons to bring satellites into orbit could prove much cheaper and more efficient than launching rockets.

These Scientists Want to Launch Satellites From Steam Balloons

By Dan Robitzski

An increasing wave of companies are launching bizarre space PR stunts, sending various products into orbit. They could fund NASA's future.

Science & Energy

Annoying PR Stunts Could Fund the Future of Space Travel

By Dan Robitzski

Physicists at the Argonne National Lab are about to use the Mira supercomputer to simulate the universe, perhaps helping them find dark energy and matter.

Scientists Will Use a Supercomputer to Simulate the Universe

By Dan Robitzski

The U.S. Space Command, the military's 11th united combatant command, will launch next week, according to Mike Pence's announcement.

Officials: US Space Command Will Launch This Month

By Dan Robitzski

Newt Gingrich proposed a $2 billion contest for private companies to set up a settlement on the Moon. Elon Musk wants in.

Elon Musk Wants Newt Gingrich’s $2 Billion Moon Payout

By Dan Robitzski

India's Chandrayaan 2 space probe is now orbiting around the Moon, putting it in position to attempt a landing in early September.

Science & Energy

India’s Space Probe Is Now Orbiting the Moon

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers found out that a potentially-habitable exoplanet can't support an atmosphere, ruling it and similar worlds out in the search for alien life.

Science & Energy

Astronomers Just Drastically Narrowed the Search for Alien Life

By Dan Robitzski

Elon Musk's proposal for terraforming Mars through sustained nuclear blasts would require detonating 3,500 bombs every day, with no margin for error.

Sorry, Elon: Terraforming Mars Would Take 3,500 Nukes per Day

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists believe they spotted the supernova of the largest star to ever detonate, giving them a glimpse into the universe's past.

Science & Energy

This Is the Most Brutal Supernova in Recorded History

By Dan Robitzski

Elon Musk tweeted "Nuke Mars!" on Thursday, likely to double down on his ill-advised dream of terraforming the Red Planet through nuclear strikes.

Elon Musk Really, Really Wants to Nuke Mars

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists suggest that Jupiter may have collided with and absorbed a giant protoplanet when the solar system was forming some 4.5 billion years ago.

Science & Energy

Jupiter May Have Absorbed a Smaller Planet

By Dan Robitzski

Russia is sending a semi-autonomous, gun-savvy robot to the International Space Station next Thursday. They hope the Russian bot will help build Moon bases.

Russia’s Gun-Shooting Robot Is Heading to the Space Station

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists observed a neutron star "glitching" and rapidly accelerating. A look under the hood could finally explain why it happens.

Science & Energy

A Neutron Star “Glitched” — and Scientists Noticed Something Amazing

By Dan Robitzski

Radioactive dust from an ancient supernova was just found buried in Antarctica, helping scientists better understand what's outside our solar system.

Science & Energy

Radioactive Dust From an Ancient Supernova Is Buried in Antarctica

By Dan Robitzski

While the recent tardigrade spill on the Moon is bad news, it may not be the first time the resilient little creatures made their way to the lunar surface.

Science & Energy

Hipster Asteroids Spilled Tardigrades on the Moon Before It Was Cool

By Dan Robitzski

New research suggests that dark matter was already there before the Big Bang occurred, altering our understanding of the history of the universe.

Science & Energy

New Research: There May Have Been Dark Matter Before Big Bang

By Dan Robitzski

During an episode of Joe Rogan's podcast, Bernie Sanders promised he'd tell the public about alien life if he was elected president.

Science & Energy

Bernie Sanders Tells Joe Rogan He’d Declassify Aliens as President

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers just found the remains of a dead star, one of the oldest in the universe, buried inside of another still-living red giant.

Science & Energy

Scientists Just Found a Dead Star Lodged Inside Another Star

By Dan Robitzski

A new study reveals that cosmic radiation is even more dangerous than we thought. Mice exposed to Mars-journey levels developed dementia-like symptoms.

Science & Energy

Mars-Journey Levels of Radiation Seriously Damaged Mouse Brains

By Dan Robitzski

Physicists built a "mini-sun" that's helping them study solar winds and why the Sun occasionally ejects blasts of plasma into space.

Scientists Built a Ball of Plasma They Call a “Mini-Sun”

By Dan Robitzski

An experiment called BioRock is figuring out whether bacteria could turn space rocks into farmable soil for future off-world settlements.

Astronomers Want to Use Bacteria to Mine Space Rocks

By Dan Robitzski

New evidence suggests that Mars may have had a liquid ocean on its surface, and that meteor impacts caused a planet-sized tsunamis.

Science & Energy

Ancient Meteor Strike Deluged Mars With Planet-Scale Tsunami

By Dan Robitzski

There's no short supply of aspirational, bold claims about how we'll colonize Mars. Unfortunately, none of them are realistic.

Reality Check: It Would Take Thousands Of Years To Colonize Mars

By Dan Robitzski

Physicists just built a new plasma-powered thruster that could vastly improve the capabilities of a small satellite conducting research in space.

Science & Energy

Princeton Unveils Plasma-Powered Satellite

By Dan Robitzski

Some galaxies called blue nuggets are unusually tiny but house gargantuan black holes. Astronomers finally think they know why.

Science & Energy

Scientists Unraveled Why Some Tiny Galaxies Have Huge Black Holes

By Dan Robitzski

The Air Force successfully launched the largest satellite into space yet. It will spend the next year learning about dangerous cosmic radiation.

Science & Energy

The US Air Force Launched the Largest Uncrewed Structure in Space

By Dan Robitzski

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bragged that his company could reach the Moon within two years. But NASA CFO Jeff DeWit isn't buying it.

NASA Official: SpaceX’s Moon Chances Are “Slim”

By Dan Robitzski

A Puerto Rican startup called Instarz plans on building a self-assembling, self-sustaining Moon habitat that can support eight astronauts for a year.

Puerto Rican Startup Plans to Launch Self-Sustaining Moon Habitat

By Dan Robitzski

Henk Rogers wants to build a lunar spaceport so that all the billionaires building shiny new rockets actually have someplace to land.

Science & Energy

The Guy Who Popularized “Tetris” Wants to Build a Lunar Spaceport

By Dan Robitzski

The Chinese space station Tiangong-2 incinerated as planned during its scheduled decommissioning on Friday. Now there's video footage of the event.

Science & Energy

Watch a Chinese Space Station Burn up in Earth’s Atmosphere

By Dan Robitzski

China is about to decommission its Tiangong-2 space station by rocketing it toward a remote patch of the Pacific Ocean dubbed the "spacecraft cemetery."

Science & Energy

China’s Tiangong-2 Space Station Will Fall Out of the Sky Friday

By Dan Robitzski

As rockets lower themselves to the lunar surface, they kick up dangerous, bullet-like storms of rocks and dust. If unaddressed, they could lead to conflict.

Rockets Causing Lunar Dust Storms Could Spark International War

By Dan Robitzski

The ESA confirmed that asteroid 2006 QV89 will not collide with Earth later this year. Scientists don't know where it is, but it isn't on its way here.

Science & Energy

Good News: That Nearby Asteroid Won’t Obliterate Us This Year

By Dan Robitzski

NASA's TESS satellite analyzed its first supernova, inadvertently revealing that astronomers made some wrong assumptions about the explosions.

Science & Energy

NASA’s Exoplanet-Hunting Satellite Discovers Mysterious Supernova

By Dan Robitzski

Hundreds of protesters in Hawaii blocked the start of construction on the Thirty Meter Telescope observatory, which would be built over cultural landmarks.

Native Hawaiians Protest at New Observatory’s Construction Site

By Dan Robitzski

A team of astronomers just saw for the first time a gas giant planet actively forming new moons out of a cloud of gas and dust.

Science & Energy

Scientists Spot Distant Gas Giant Still Forming New Moons

By Dan Robitzski

An attempt to reconcile the discrepancy among Hubble Constant calculations only complicated the matter, raising questions about our models of the universe.

New Hubble Data Breaks Scientists’ Understanding of the Universe

By Dan Robitzski

According to a new survey, American and British kids would much rather become YouTubers than astronauts, while the opposite is true in China.

Astronauts Are Out. American Kids Would Rather Be YouTubers.

By Dan Robitzski

It may be possible to terraform Mars by blanketing future space farms with a thin layer of aerogel that blocks radiation and heats the ground.

Science & Energy

A Thin Layer of Aerogel Could Make Martian Farming Possible

By Dan Robitzski

On Wednesday, Hayabusa-2, the Japanese space probe that landed on then bombed and asteroid, once more touched down to collect samples and take pictures.

Japanese Probe Returns to Site of Asteroid Bombing, Takes Pics

By Dan Robitzski

A distant black hole is surrounded by a much larger disk of spacestuff than scientists expected, giving them a rare glimpse of special relativity in action.

This Might Be the Strangest Black Hole Yet

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers discovered two distant supermassive black holes on a crash course with each other. They hope to learn whether such mergers are possible.

Two Supermassive Black Holes Are on a Devastating Crash Course

By Dan Robitzski

As NASA scrambles to get ready for Artemis, its upcoming crewed mission to the Moon slated for 2024, China may take the lead.

Bad News, Astronauts: NASA Probably Won’t Reach Moon by 2024

By Dan Robitzski

NASA just turned off a heater on the Voyager 2 space probe in order to conserve dwindling energy supplies as the spacecraft explores interstellar space.

The Voyager Probes Are Running Low on Power

By Dan Robitzski

When the ESA launches LISA, a constellation of gravitational wave-detecting satellites, it will likely be able to spot new exoplanets across the galaxy.

Science & Energy

Gravitational Wave Detector May Find Exoplanets in Nearby Galaxies

By Dan Robitzski

Next year, astronauts on the International Space Station will attempt to bake cookies in space. It's part PR stunt, part lesson in zero-g manufacturing.

Science & Energy

Astronauts Are Planning to Bake Cookies on the Space Station

By Dan Robitzski

Chameleon Theory provides an alternative explanation for galaxy formation and the universe's expansion from Einstein's General Relativity.

New “Chameleon Theory” Could Explain Dark Energy, How Galaxies Formed

By Dan Robitzski

As LightSail 2 orbits Earth and explores the cosmos, people back home can track the progress of the solar sail and monitor its status through a new website.

A New Website Tracks the Just-Launched Solar Sail Spaceship

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers have detected over ten radio bursts from distant galaxies in the last week. The sudden frequency could help us figure out what's causing them.

Science & Energy

Possible Alien Radio Signals Way More Common Than Believed

By Dan Robitzski

The Pentagon wants its own dedicated space station in orbit around the Earth for both scientific research and military operations.

The Pentagon Wants Its Own Orbital Space Station, Like a Death Star, But Not, Okay?

By Dan Robitzski

NASA announced a new contest in which contestants are asked to come up with a design for a space garden capable of growing crops.

New NASA Contest Seeks Way to Grow a Space Garden

By Dan Robitzski

A scientist argued that more dogs should be sent to space, both to serve as companions but also to improve microbiome diversity in orbit.

Scientists Are Calling for More Dogs in Space

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers traced a mysterious, fleeting radio burst from space back to the galaxy from which it originated for the first time.

Astronomers Traced a Mysterious Radio Burst to a Distant Galaxy

By Dan Robitzski

A new set of equations can make sense of the physics behind turbulence, letting scientists better understand weather and the ways galaxies form.

New Turbulence Models Could Predict Galaxy Formation

By Dan Robitzski

America, Russia, and China already frequently commit acts of "gray-area aggression" against each other in outer space as they toe the line of warfare.

Has a Space War Between US, China, Russia Already Started?

By Dan Robitzski

A bizarre, futuristic contests invited space agencies and astronomers from around the world to find the best way to colonize the Milky Way.

Astronomers Model How Humanity Could Colonize the Milky Way

By Dan Robitzski

Later this week, NATO officials are expected to announce the a strategy for militarizing outer space as individual nations ramp up weapons programs.

NATO Plans to Launch Its Strategy for Militarizing Space This Week

By Dan Robitzski

New computer simulations upend our understanding of how distant space rocks called trans-Neptunian objects formed during the solar system's earliest days.

Space Rocks Near Neptune Could Reveal the Solar System’s Origins

By Dan Robitzski

On Monday night, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy will launch 24 experimental satellites into orbit. CEO Elon Musk calls it the company's "most difficult launch."

Elon Musk: This Is SpaceX’s “Most Difficult Launch” Ever

By Dan Robitzski

A new study found that frozen sperm samples survived in microgravity, suggesting reproducing in space with sperm sent from Earth could be possible.

Study: Sperm Banks in Space Could Make Colonizing Mars Possible

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists recreated the extreme conditions of salty mud puddles on Mars in order to see whether microbial life could feasibly survive there.

Extraterrestrial Life Could Feasibly Live in Salty Puddles on Mars

By Dan Robitzski

The ESA plans to launch a trio of space probes — a "mothership" and two interceptors — that will wait up in space for comets to pass nearby.

ESA Announces “Mothership” Mission to Intercept Comets

By Dan Robitzski